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UNIFORM WITH BEOWULF 



THE SONG OF ROLAND 

Done into English in the Original Measure by 
CHARLES SCOTT MONCRIEFF 

With an Introduction by G. K. Chesterton and a Note on 
Technique by George Saintsbury. 

(Second Impression). 



SOME CRITICAL OPINIONS. 

Mr. Frederic Harrison, in The Fortnightly Review : " I take a 
lively interest in the new translation of the grand mediaeval Epic 
— Chanson de Roland, ... It is a bold and successful venture. 
... I advise all who care for mediaeval history and for ^primitive 
epics to study the original side by side with Captain Scott Mon- 
crieff's translation.'' 

Mr. Edmund Gosse, C.B., in The Sunday Times : ** There 
have in the past been made efforts to render the Song of Roland 
into English, but they have not hitherto been very successful. . . . 
Captain Scott Moncrieff has approached this rough epic in exactly 
the right spirit ; having read his version carefully, and having 
accustomed my ear to his treatment of the assonance, I feel that 
his success is very considerable indeed.'' 

Mr. G. K. Chesterton C At the Sign of the World's End ") in 
The New Witness : ** The horn of Roland, unlike the horns of 
elfland, really does roll from soul to soul, and grow for ever and 
for ever. The enthusiasm of a rising and very critical critic like 
Mr. Scott Moncrieff is a type of its renewal. There is something 
of immortal moment about that image of the king and his court 
riding home in triumph, and hearing from the dark pass behind 
them the dreadful note of doom. Indeed, it is very like our present 
position ; when our rulers are supposed to have triumphed and 
made peace, and through the chorus of praise come wild un- 
accountable voices from Poland and Italy, and the intolerable 
irony of Ireland. However it be explained or applied, there re- 
mains arrested for ever the pageant of that halted march." 

Mr. James Douglas, in The Star and in The Nottingham 
Journal : ** The war has bred many poets, and now it has bestowed 
upon us a noble translation of a noble poem, a translation which 
is itself a fresh grace and glory of our English tongue. . . Know- 
ing nothing of the Song, as I read this translation I felt like Keats 



as he read Chapman's " Homer." It was like a door opening and 
letting out great music. . . . Not being a great scholar like Pro- 
fessor Saintsbury, I can bestow on this translation only the praise 
of instinctive delight in a masterpiece of English — a thing com- 
parable with FitzGerald s " Omar " or Urquhart's '' Rabelais." It 
has the savour of genius in its marvellous resurrection of a lost time 
and a forgotten faith. ... If a poetry be a means of escape from 
the petty dust of one's environment, surely this thing is a libera- 
tion and enlargement. Our day will pass, and men will see the 
heroic element in it to which we are blind. I can imagine a scholar 
a hundred years hence citing this translation as a proof that our 
soldiers were heroical." 

Professor Robert Nichols, in The Observer : ** So adequate is 
Captain Scott Moncrieff 's translation that it can but take its place 
with the classics in this sort — with Florio's '* Montaigne," Fitz- 
gerald's " Omar," Watts- cum-Pusey's " St. Augustine," Urqu- 
hart's " Rabelais," and Burton's '* Arabian Nights." The work 
has that considerable accuracy with the maximum of the original 
flavour which amounts to a recreation, and which alone makes a 
translation worthy of the text translated. Such a recreation is in 
all cases an uncommon feat ; in this case it amounts to a triumph." 

B.S., in The Manchester Guardian : ** There are other trans- 
lations of the *' Chanson de Roland," of course, but we doubt if 
they have been widely read. The virtue of Captain Moncrieff 's 
version is that it popularises for us one of those great works 
literature which contain and summarise an epoch. No one who 
once fairly begins to read his '' Song of Roland " will want to 
put the book down till he has finished it. This is perhaps the most 
remarkable aspect of a very remarkable achievement." 

H.O., in The Athenceum : " Our author revels in the battle- 
pieces, the vigour of which has surely never been surpassed ; he 
can be tender at the right moment ; nor does he ever miss the 
spirit of pure religious faith and the fervent note of patriotism 
that inform the whole." 

The Tablet : *' We feel that the translation will prove most 
useful to those who may be teaching English literature or history 
in our Catholic schools. . . . The Catholic atmosphere of the 
poem, its Catholic setting, and its religious feeling can be grasped 
only by one who still professes the same faith." 

The Christian Science Monitor : " * The Song of Roland ' is 
one of the greatest pagan epics, if not the greatest, in the world's 
literature. It is full of every splendid nobleness to which humanity 
is heir, except that particular nobleness which was taught and 
practised by the Founder of Christianity 

'' There can be little but praise for the way in which Captain 
Scott Moncrieff has carried out the superlatively difficult task of 
rendering the great epic into English. The combination of rugged 
dignity and breathless speed which is characteristic of the original 
has been reproduced with astonishing success." 



The Saturday Westminster Gazette : " We cannot commend 
the experiment. . . . The book is the most literal translation 
that we know. It is not poetry.*' 

The Pall Mall Gazette : ** The experiment, we think, is a real 
success. It is only a true craftsman who can handle such a thing 
and be judged not to have dimmed its brightness." 

The Liverpool Post : '' The reviewer's first feeling was one of 
vain regret — * How useful this might have been to me once ! ' 
And one still feels . . . that the work will prove mainly useful 
for educational purposes, or, if one prefers to put it so, as an 
undergraduate's crib." 

The Times Literary Supplement : ** * The Chanson de Roland ' 
is ' abrupt and^barbarous ' ; if its effect as a poem is to be felt in 
English the translation, while keeping faithfully to the meaning, 
must reproduce the abruptness and barbarity of the French 
laisses. That is what Mr. Moncrieff, unlike the other translators 
of this poem, has done. . . . 

" The enthusiasm, the flash of one poet catching almost in- 
tuitively the emotion of another long dead, the thrill of reading 
an intelligent transcript of a great poem — ^these are the valuable 
things in this book." 

The Morning Post : " We took up this volume with a certain 
sense of disappointment. It seemed to us that Captain Scott 
Moncrieff might have given us a more modern epic . . . not of 
Roland, but of Tommy Atkins. But our ingratitude was short- 
lived. ... 

" This Song not only sings of triumph, but is in itself a wonder- 
ful triumph for our mother tongue." 

The Glasgow Herald: *' The blessing of Mr. Saintsbury . . . 
should suffice the most scholarly. For ourselves, we can imagine 
no finer gift for the right kind of boy. Every noble element of 
romance leaps into life in the tale of the fight and the horn-blow- 
ing, and no braver teaching will be found in mortal story than in 
the last meeting of Roland and Oliver." 

" Peter Bell," in Land and Water : ** To have translated this 
work is to have performed a service to English readers ; and to 
have translated it in the original measure with so much success 
as here is to have achieved a notable feat of dexterity." 

Country Life : '* Captain Scott Monciieff writes from the very 
heart and centre of his theme. . . .* A version done divinely 
well ' we may surely call this, in the words that Tennyson Applied 
to FitzgeraldV Omar.' " 

The Nation : '* Captain Moncrieff met the ' Chanson de 
Roland ' by accident, but it was really a pre- determined con- 
junction of affinities, a translators Roland for the original's 
Oliver, so wonderfully do these twin literary spirits match each 
other. That explains the translator's * word for word ' ; he had 
no other alternative, but we can imagine what a hash of it an 
equally gifted man of letters — ^who was not Captain Moncrieff 



— T^ould have made of it. As it is, we have the singular and indeed 
unique pleasure of reading this grand old epic not so very differ- 
ently as its contemporaries heard it sung to them by tht jongleurs. 

" It is indeed good work, rough as an uncut diamond, but full 
of pathos and fierce power/' 

The Cambridge Magazine (largest circulation of any University 
Weekly in Great Britain) : " Warriors have, as a rule, expressed 
such a horror of war poems ! " 

John O' London's Weekly : *' Fame is a queer thing." 

The London Mercury- (in a re\-iew of four pages) : '' Epics need 
so many particular and favourable circumstances for their pro- 
duction that they are scarce and highly individual, and every 
literature ought to have a sufficient rendering of each of them. 
Mr. Scott Moncrieff . . . has produced a fine original English 
poem, and one can safely assert that he has also reproduced the 
spirit of the original, because the poem s characteristics which he 
derives from the original, the social system implied, the psych- 
ology and general treatment harmionise excellently with the 
characteristics which are due to himself, namely, the spirit and 
dress of the verse which he has employed. 

" Mr. Moncrieff proposes, by using M. Leon Gautier's final 
edition of the ' Song of Roland,' to increase the poem by some 
four hundred lines. We regret this, though we admire his courage 
and his loyalty to his original. 

The Count Rollanz has never loved cowards. 
Nor arrogant, nor men of evil heart, 
Xor chevalier that was not good vassal. 
Surely he would love Mr. Moncrieff.'' 

The Outlook : "In his translation of ' The Song of Roland,' 
Captain Scott Moncrieff has given us many good gifts above and 
beyond the superb quality of the translation itself. One of these, 
and we confess to finding it singularly touching, is the quiet 
description of how the work cam.e to be done. . . . Another 
good gift is G. K. Chesterton's introduction, which will always 
remain one of the small perfect essays in the language. . . . Then 
we have George Saintsbur}''s Note on Technique. 

** Captain Scott Moncrieff . . . can wTite on an individual 
note if ever a T^xiter could ; but we owe an eternal debt of grati- 
tude to him that he has been entirely concerned v^-ith the * Song 
of Roland ' and not at all \\ith the song of Captain Scott Moncrieff." 

" Mr. Belloc, lecturing on * The Song of Roland,' in Glasgow, 
paid a high compliment to the recent translation by Captain Scott 
Moncrieff, who, he said, followed the literary meaning and diction, 
type ofassonance and metre of the original." {The Glasgow Herald, 
iVlarch i, 1920). 

Mr. Masefield, leauring on ** The Song of Roland "in London 
said he did not think it was possible to translate '* The Song of 
Roland." 

The Scotsman, December 8, 1919 : " There is no more to say." 



Widsith 

BEOWULF 

Finnsburgh ♦ Waldere ♦ Deor 



Widsith 

BEOWULF 

Finnsburgh ^ Waldere . Deor 

Done into common English 

after the old manner 

by 

CHARLES SCOTT MONCRIEFF 

With an Introduction by 

VISCOUNT NORTHCLIFFE 



NEW YORK : 

E. P. DUTTON & CO. 

MCMXXI 



f^^ 



.^'^ 







THE WESTrMINSTTER PRESS 

HARROW ROAD 

LONDON 



em 



^ Contents 




Introduction 


Page 
vii 


Translator's Preface 


ix 


Dedication 


xvii 


Arguments of the Poems 
Widsith 


xix 
I 


Beowulf 


7 


Finnsburgh 
Waldere 
— Deor 
Notes 


105 
107 
109 
III 



Introduction 

IT is characteristic of the modesty of the English 
people that our oldest epic, or, rather, the one 
Old English epic that has survived, should 
contain not a word about England. Indeed, the 
greater part of its story takes place in the country 
of the Danes, who had been England's most cruel 
and destructive enemies for some two centuries 
before the existing manuscript of Beowulf was 
written. So, too, in a later age, when our drama 
came to be written, pride of place was given to, 
and has since been held by, the Tragedy of Hamlet, 
Prince of Denmark. But the preservation of Beo- 
wulf as an English epic is justified by the embodi^ 
ment in its hero of many traits of character which 
we are still proud to recognise among our fellow- 
Countrymen. Higher criticism may reduce Grendel 
and his mother to the symbolical dimensions of 
epidemics, due to an over-populated settlement 
on the marshy and misty shore of a tideless sea ; 
but the courage of the young captain and his 
small company, facing unknown perils in a foreign 
country, and the renewed courage of the veteran > 
after more than a generation of peaceful govern- 
ment, arming himself to fight and die alone in the 
defence of his people, are facts with which, hap- 
pily, we are still familiar. 

How many thousand Beowulfs have we not 
sent out in the last seven years from these islands 
to face subtleties of horror as incredible as Grendel, 
fire as scathing as the Worm's, sea-monsters 
against which no armament was proof ? Some 
have come back in triumph ; others, like Hond- 
scio and Aeschere, have fallen, mangled and 
murdered, whose fame is preserved only in 
memory for so long as their friends survive them. 

vii 



Some, like Beowulf in his youth, had no good 
said of them, were accounted of little worth by 
the captains of warriors, who " shrewdly reckoned 
that slack they were." Yet to them, as to Beowulf, 
** atonement came for all their troubles." 

Perhaps it would be better to sing the troubles 
and triumphs of even one of these, our contem- 
poraries, than to revive a momentary interest in 
an old and harshly worded poem from a forgotten 
dialect. But I welcome this version of Beowulf 
because I find in its hero what I lament in count- 
less men who have fallen in the field, simple cour- 
age, untiring endurance, stainless honour. 

NORTHCLIFFE. 



7iu 



Translator's Preface 

IT is as difficult to find an excuse for adding 
to what Mr. Wyatt, in his admirable Anglo- 
Saxon Reader y^ describes as " a whole library 
of books dealing with Beowulf ^^^ as it is rash for a 
young adventurer to challenge so powerful a 
competitor (to name no others) as William Morris. 
But this translation follows logically after that 
of the Chanson de Roland^ which I have already 
published, and was inspired by the suggestion 
that I should attempt to do for the English epic 
what I had done for the French. f 

So many slighting references have been made 
to Beowulf and its admirers lately, in the press of 
this country, that I am obliged to conclude that a 
considerable interest, one way and the other, is 
felt in the poem, even by some of the many critics 
who have never read it. As I said in my former 
volume, this *^ is not a work of scholarship, nor 
yet of imagination " ; but I hope that it may 
prove useful to a few of the hundreds of students 
who have to acquire some knowledge of the original 
in order to graduate in English Literature in our 
various Universities, and that, at the same time, 
it may interest others who are compelled and 
content to remain in ignorance of the austere 
beauties of the Old English language. 

The history of the poem is fairly well known ; 
it seems to have been composed, in the Anglian 
dialect, about the year 700, nearly a century be- 
fore, in Beorhtric's day, as the Chronicle tells 
us, J *' came the first three ships, and the reeve 

* Cambridge University Press, 191 9. 

f For, as is well-known, 

Ne sont que trois matieres a nul home attendant, 
De France et de Bretaigne et de Rome la grant. 

X Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, year 787. 

ix ' 



rode thereto, and would drive them to that King^s 
town because he knew not what they were ; and 
one slew him. Those were the first ships of Danish 
men that sought the land of the Angle-kin," About 
the end of the tenth century, when the Danish 
men were again harrying England, two nameless 
scribes copied for us, in the dialect of Wessex, 
the one manuscript of Beowulf which has sur- 
vived. From that time it must have remained in 
its monastic library, unread and increasingly 
uninteUigible, until, after the Dissolution, it 
passed into the collection of Sir Robert Bruce 
Cotton, now absorbed in the library of the British 
Museum. Here it was discovered in 1700 by 
Humfrey Wanley, who describes it in his cata- 
logue as ^' Tractatus nobilissimus poetice scrip- 
tus,*' in which there seemed to be, for he could 
not have translated it, *' descripta bella quae 
Beowulfus, quidam Danus ex regio Scyldingorum 
stirpe ortus, gessit contra Sueciae Regulos." In 
173 1 a great part of the Cottonian hbrary was 
destroyed by a fire at Ashburnham House in 
Westminster, in which the Government had 
recently placed it for safety. The volume, Vitellius 
A 15, in which Beozoulf is bound, escaped with 
serious injury. In 1786 Thorkelin of Copenhagen 
transcribed the manuscript, for the second time, 
perhaps, since his Danish ancestors came to 
England exactly a thousand years earher ; by a 
belated act of retaliation the materials for his 
edition were destroyed by an English fleet, in the 
bombardment of Copenhagen, and Beowulf did 
not appear in print until 181 5. Finally, in 1882, 
an autotype facsimile was prepared for the Early 
English Text Society, with a literal transcription, 
by Professor Zupitza, while a more accessible text 
is that edited by Messrs. A. J. Wyatt and R. W. 
Chambers, and pubHshed by the Cambridge 
University Press in 19 14. 

In the manuscript the poem is written 



continuously, as it were prose, but in forty-three 
divisions, forty of which are headed with num- 
bers. The opening Unes bear no number ; then 
come twenty-eight divisions of about seventy 
lines each, numbered I to XXVIII . The next 
gap, after line 2038, and in the middle of a sent- 
ence, has no number ; then come XXXI to 
XXXVIII, one more unnumbered, and XL to 
XLIII. These divisions do not at all correspond 
to the natural breaks in the poem. 

The story opens as though it were intended to 
be in praise of another Beowulf, the son of Shield 
of the Sheaf, and an ancestral King of the Danes 
or Shieldings. To Shield is ascribed the mjrthical 
origin, as a child sent forth alone in a boat from 
an unknown haven, which later Chroniclers 
gave to a certain Sheaf, who, by another story, 
was born in the Ark, the son of Noah. But at the 
hundredth line the tone of the poem changes ; 
the Danish Beowulf has flourished and di^d. 
Hrothgar,his grandson, having at length succeeded, 
orders a hall to be built him, the mightiest 
on earth, and calls its name Heorot, or Hart. 
While he is feasting with his court, Grendel, a 
monster from the fens and moors, descended 
from the exiled offspring of Cain, invades Heorot, 
and snatches from it thirty of Hrothgar's thegns ; 
the court is scattered in terror, and for twelve 
years the hall remains deserted. 

It will be seen that the Danes, whose prowess 
is so extravagantly lauded in the opening lines, 
have already ceased to be the heroes of the story. 
In Hne 194 we first hear of '' Higelac's thegn," 
in Hne 262 he tells us that he is the son of Ecgtheow, 
and in line 343 he names himself to the Danes as 
Beowulf ; henceforward the story is of him. Beo- 
wulf, like Roland and a hundred other heroes of 
epic and romance, was the son of his sovereign's 
sister ; and Beowulf's uncle, like Roland's, has 
a place in history, for the Higelac who invaded 

xi ' 



the Frisian land, who there *' swallowed the sword- 
drink/' whose life lay in the Franks' keeping, can be 
identified \\ath the Chocilaicus mentioned in the 
Gesta Regum Francorum of Gregon^ of Tours, who 
was killed by the Frankish Prince Theodebert,son 
of Theodoricthe sonof Clo\'is,in the second decade 
of the sixth centur}'. So also Hrothgar is the Roe, son 
of Haldanus, who figures in Saxo Grammaticus as a 
King of Denmark and the founder of Roskilde. 



II 

With Beowulf I have included two short poems 
and two epic "fragments, ever\thing of the kind 
which has survived in our language. Widsith may 
sen,'e as an introduction to the rest, but a volume 
stouter than this would be required for the proper 
annotation of Widsith alone. The curious reader 
may turn to the fascinating work of Mr. Cham- 
bers,* and will find there a wealth of information 
on the histor}' and m\tholog\' of the tribes and 
heroes mentioned in the poem. Widsith, like 
Dear, is found in the Exeter Book, a collection of 
Old English poetr\' made about the same time as 
the manuscript of Beozcidf, and presented to the 
Cathedral of Exeter by its first Bishop, Leofric, 
who removed his See there from Crediton in 
1050. Its own date is less easily determined, as the 
hero claims to have \asited historical Kings whose 
reigns extended over more than two centuries, 
while references to Syrians and Israelites, Assyr- 
ians and Hebrews point to interpolation by a later, 
probably monastic, scribe ; but the bulk of the 
poem must have been composed not much earlier, 
and probably not much later, than the year 600. 
It might weir be called the Lay of the First Minstrel, 

• Widsith, a Study in Old English Heroic Legend, by R. 
W. Chambers, Cambridge University Press, 1912. 

xii 



as it is our oldest record of that noble tradition 
of which Scott celebrated the decline.^ 

If Widsith is an extremely condensed " narrative 
poem/' Deor is in every sense a lyric. Mr. Wyatt 
compares it aptly to a ballade by Villon, Its con- 
struction in stanzas is deliberate, and is marked 
by the regular refrain. It is a plaintive, but philo- 
sophical statement of a poet's misfortunes, who 
is consoled by the reflection that greater than he 
have suffered also. 

The short fragments of Finnshurgh and Waldere 
are long enough to shew what we have lost by the 
destruction of an epic literature, of which Beowulf 
alone survives. The forty-eight lines of Finns- 
burgh were found on a leaf of parchment in the 
library of Lambeth Palace, by Dr. George Hickes, 
the Non-Juror Dean of Worcester, for whom 
Humfrey Wanley made his catalogue. Later, this 
leaf disappeared, when the volume whose wrapper 
it had become was sent to a binder, and the sole 
extant authority for the fragment is the text 
printed by Hickes in 1705 in his Ltnguarum Veter- 
um Septentrionalium Thesaurus. Apart from its 
evident merit as a battle-song, the fragment is of 
great interest as corroborating the longest of the 
lays in Beowulf ^ the song of Finn and Hildeburh 
sung by Hrothgar's bard on the mead-bench after 
the discomfiture of Grendel.f 

The two fragments called Waldere were dis- 
covered in i860 by the Royal Librarian at Copen- 
hagen, among the papers left by Thorkelin, the 
first editor of Beowulf. They are part of an epic, 
the story of which is preserved in the Latin WaU 
tharius Manufortts of Ekkehard of St. Gall, and 
has been well summarised by Mr. Wyatt in his 

t " Within the memory of man, an old person used to 
perambulate the streets of Edinburgh, singing, in a monotonous 
cadence, the tale of Rosewal and Lilian/' 

Scott, Sir Tristrem (1804). 

* Beowulf, lines 1068 to 1159. 

xiii B 



Anglo- Saxon Reader, from which I quote : '' Walter 
of Aquitaine, Hildegimd of the Burgundians, 
his betrothed, and Hagen of the Franks were 
taken as hostages by Attila and nobly reared at his 
court. But in course of time Hagen escaped. So, 
later, did the lovers, taking with them much 
treasure, When they reached the Vosges, they 
were attacked by the Prankish King Gunther and 
twelve warriors, including Hagen, Walter's frater 
juratus eleven warriors were slain by Walter in 
the rocky pass, which was worth an army to him ; 
then Gunther and Hagen withdrew and hid them- 
selves. Their ruse succeeded ; next day the lovers 
continued their journey, and were overtaken in 
the plain by their two foes. Walter's appeal to 
friendship is in vain, for Hagen has now a sister's 
son to avenge. After hours of fighting, one against 
two, the hero is still unconquered ; he has lost 
his right hand, Hagen an eye, and Gunther a leg, 
and in this condition they make peace, and jest 
while Hildegund serves them with wine." In Old 
English Walter becomes Waldere, Hildegund 
Hildegyth, Gunther Guthhere (the same who gave 
a gladsome jewel to Widsith), and Hagen Hagena. 



HI 

With my versification, prosodists are at liberty 
to find what fault they will. Old English poetry 
was composed not for the Hbrarian but for the 
harpist, and if these versions of mine can be 
shouted aloud to the harp or its equivalent, so 
much the better. Apart from that, I have attempted 
to make the sort of lines that an Englishman of 
the Heptarchy would recognise as metrical, 
though he might feel obliged to improve them in 
a hundred ways. The first difficulty in translating 
Old English is presented by its curiously primi- 
tive syntax ; if this be retained, the effect is tedious 

xiv 



and unreadable ; if it be too much amended the 
original form is destroyed. Another difficulty is 
the loss from our speech of many excellent words 
in which the old poets found synonyms for the 
things they most commonly described, such as 
war, battle, army, soldier, sword, and, above all, 
the sea. A third comes from our having dropped 
the inflections from our words, so that what in 
the original was a trochee, with its proper rhyth- 
mical force, becomes a dull and unwieldy mono- 
syllable. Yet another is the apparent loss of alliter- 
ative value in words whose initials have changed, 
I have escaped this by sometimes alliterating g 
with y where the latter (as in ye, youth, etc.) repre- 
sents an Old English g, and by alliterating I, n, r 
and w with h and with each other when the Old 
English initial is aspirated, hi, hn, hr, or hw. A 
more difficult thing is the alliteration of com- 
pound and prefixed words, in which it has been 
impossible to follow consistently the rules observed 
in the surviving corpus — some thirty thousand 
lines — of pre-Conquest verse. Scholars, I repeat, 
are at liberty to condemn both my metre and my 
alliteration, provided that they shew me how 
both may be improved. The general reader must 
be content with my assurance that what follows 
is a fair imitation of Old English Poetry, the chief 
rules of which are as follows : 

The line consists of two metrically equivalent 
halves, separated in this volume by an oblique 
stroke (/). In each half there are normally two* 
accented syllables, and at least one accented syllable 
in the first half-line is alliterated with one in the 
second. All four syllables may be alliterated, or 
any three ; or there may be double alliterations — 

* Lines with three accented syllables in each half are rare 
in Beowulf. Examples are 1 162-8, 1705-7, and there is 
elsewhere a tendency to associate a third word with the two 
most strongly accented in each half-line. Typical examples of 
the lengthened line will be found in Judith. 

XV 



ab/ ahyOrab Iba. For alliteration, all initial vowels 
are reckoned the same, as are all aspirated vowels and 
consonants — ha, he, hi, hi, hn, ho, hr, hu, and hw.'^ 

To illustrate this I print the opening lines of 
Beowulf in their original form, substituting th for 
the old compound letter, and printing the accented 
initials in italics : 

Hwaet ! we Gar-Z)ena / in ^ear-^agum 
^Aeod-cyninga / thrym. ge/runon, 
hu tha ttethelmgas / ^Uen/remedon. 
Oft Scyld Sctfing j ^^eathena ?Areatum, 
monegum maegthum / weodo-setla ofteah. 
£'gsode eovXy / syththan arrest z(;earth 
/ea-sceaft /unden ; / he thaes /rofre geiad, 
wto^ under 2:c;olcnum, / et;eorth-myndum /^ah, 
oth thaet Aim a^ghwylc / thara jmb-^ittendra 
ofer /^ron-rade / Ayran ^^olde, 
^omban ^yldan ; / thaet waes ^od ryning. 

IV 

I have to acknowledge the kindness and the 
candour of several critics who have allowed them- 
selves to be burdened with parts of this book in 
manuscript ; Professor Blyth Webster, to whom 
I owe any knowledge I may have acquired of Old 
English ; Professor Ker, whose warning I ought 
to have taken ; Mr. J. C. Squire, who allowed me 
to reprint the Dedication from his London Mer- 
cury ; Mr. J. E. Gurdon, who seemed to think 
the poem worth reading ; Mr. Arthur Waugh, 
who has thought it worth publishing ; and, above 
all and beyond all, Lord Northcliffe. 

London, Charles Scott Moncrieff. 

March, 1921. 

f Of the words in Beowulf beginning with aspirated con- 
sonants the commonest are hladan to load, hlaew a law or 
burial-mound, hlaford 2. lord, hleahtor laughter, hlud loud, 
hnah niggard, hrefn raven, hreoh rough, hring ring, hrof roof, 
hron whale, hrycg ridge, hwa hzcaei who what, hwaer where, 
and such words as now begin zvh, except uihi a whit. 

xvi 



Dedication 

TO 

RICHARD REYNOLDS BALL, 

WHO, LIKE BEOWULF, 

TRAVELLED FEARLESSLY IN 

A FAR COUNTRY, RISKING 

HIS LIFE TO HELP THE 

VICTIMS OF WAR AND 

OPPRESSION, 

UNTIL HE DIED 

IN POLAND 

IN DECEMBER, I919. 

AND TO TWO OTHERS, 

HIS FRIENDS AND MINE, 

WHO HAVE FOLLOWED 

FROM MY WORLD TO HIS : 

JOHN SCOTT MONCRIEFF 

GLADYS DALYELL 

What ! My loved companion, /in coldness liest thou, 
Finished with life, / in a land afar ? 
From friends divided, / to death forsaken, 
Farest thou alone / on Fate's errand. 
The way of the world when / by the Will of God 
Goeth to Him again / the gift He hath given. 
His loan of life. / No less I mourn thee 
Than did I those / whom Death went thieving, 
Willing youths / in the years of war. 
Our friends and our fellows, / though fain was I 
of them 

xvii 



When keenly I bewailed / my battle-comrades, 
Finding them murdered / upon many fields. 
When a little knave I was / knew I thee first 
Since before me thou / wast born among men, 
An elder friend / to those following after. 
For thou wast living / thirt}^ years long, 
Summers and winters, / ere war us sundered, 
Friend from friend, / and four years following 
Busily kept me / among killing banes. 
Then thou wast w^ith foreign races, / 

Russ-men and Frenchmen, 
Serbs and Poles, / in the passing seasons, 
Six \^dnter-tides, / while the tale of war 
Pressed to an end ; / peace came after, 
Prosperity promised / to the peoples on earth. 
Welfare after warfare. / Would they then readily 
Wind away, / the warriors mostly, 
A stragghng few / of the fierce strugglers 
Who out of the battle / had borne them aHve. 
But thou wast for returning / whither trouble waited , 
Famine and fever / among friendless folk. 
Nor was it any time then till / must taste thou also 
The dreary cup / that Christ erst drank. 
Sad in soul, / the Sinners' Shepherd, 
The Holy Lord, / whose Heart ever loveth us, 
The Son of God / in the Garden of Sorrows, 
On the eve of Death. / Even so didst thou also. 
By fever fated. / Freely ever}'\vhere wentest thou. 
Shooting not at enemies, / armed with no shield 
Against threats / of evil-thinkers. 
But smiling at terrors, / true and simple, 
Diedst thou as thou hadst Hved, / dutifully. 
Nor have I heard of a man/ having more of happiness. 
Stronger and kinder / to kinsmen and strangers, 
A warden of the wretched. / Will they easily 
Bear in mind, / who may hereafter be born. 
The English friend / of their fathers of old, 



XVI u 



Who helped them in need, / and held back nothing, 

Gave his life / for the love of God. 

They will say that of men / in mind and soul 

He excelled others / among all peoples. 

In mood the mildest, / in mercy and pity 

Best beloved, / most beautiful to remember 

In the days / of this our life. 

JunCy 1920. C. K. S. M, 



XIX 



Arguments of the Poems 



Widsith 

Widsith, a wandering poet of the Myrging tribe, speaks. 
He tells of the lands he has seen and the Kings who ruled 
in them, and especially of Eormanric, who gave him treas- 
ure, and of Eadgils, his own King, who gave him his father s 
heritage. Such is the fortune of the minstrel ; wherever he 
may wander, north or south, he may find a benefactor, sing 
his praise, and be rewarded. 

Beowulf 

The poet recalls the power and prowess of the Danes ; 
Shield of the Sheaf, their first King, who as a child came to 
their shores, alone, in a ship, and, after his death, was sent 
from their shores, alone, across the unknown ocean ; his 
successors, Beowulf, Halfdane and Hrothgar. Hrothgar 
orders his people to build him a great hall, which he calls 
Heorot, in which, for a short time, they dwell in happiness. 
Suddenly Grendel, a fiend from hell, of the accursed race 
of Cain, invades the hall and snatches in their sleep thirty 
of Hrothgar s thegns. The next night, he returns, and so, 
for twelve years, the hall is deserted and the people plagued 
Then Beowulf, a thegn and nephew of Higelac, King of 
the Geats, hears in his home of the troubles of the Danes 
and with fourteen picked companions crosses the sea to 
their country. They are challenged by the coast-guard, who 
is convinced of their friendly purpose, and guides them to 
Heorot, where Beowulf is recognised and welcomed by 
Hrothgar. At Hrothgar 's bidding the Geats sit down to 
feast with the Danes. 

Unferth, son of Ecglaf, a favourite of Hrothgar, is jealous 
of Beowulf, and taunts him with his failure in a swimming- 
match with Breca the Bronding. Beowulf replies, telling 
the true story, and charging Unferth with cowardice in not 
having dared to face Grendel. Wealhtheow, Hrothgar s 
Queen, takes the cup round the hall, and Hrothgar retires 
to rest. 

xxi 



X Beowulf and his men lie down in the hall, and all but he 

XI sleep. Then, out of the mists on the moors, comes Grendel; 
he breaks through the doors and tears to pieces Hondscio, 
one of Beo'SMjlf s men, whom he devours. 

But Beowulf has the strength of thirty men in his hand ; 

XII unarmed, he wrestles with Grendel, and at length tears off 
his right arm. Mortally wounded, Grendel slinks home to 
his lair in the fens. 

XIII In the morning, young and old assemble ; they see Grendels 
arm hanging by the roof of the hall, and follow the track 
of his blood to the foul pool in which he has dived and 
died. They race their horses homewards, and on the way 
a minstrel sings to them of Sigemund and his war with the 
dragon, and of Heremod, an evil King, who was betrayed 
into the hands of his enemies. Not so, he says, is Beowulf. 

XIV Hrothgar and his Queen leave their bower and come to the 
hall, where he gives thanks to God, seeing GrendeFs arm 
exposed there. He hails Beowulf as his son, and promises 
him ample rewards. Beowailf describes the fight. Ecglaf is 
shamed into silence. 

XV Heorot is adorned for a feast with golden hangings. Hroth- 
gar bestows armour, treasure and horses upon Beowulf, 

XVI and other gifts upon each of his companions. The bard 
then sings the lay of Finn, a Frisian King, who had carried 
off Hildeburh, the daughter of Hoc, and was attacked by 
her brothers, Hnaef and Hengest. Hnaef and Finn's son 

XVII are killed, and Finn makes a pact with Hengest, who re- 
mains in his burgh through the winter. The bodies of the 
slain are burned. Hengest plans revenge, but the Frisians 
attack him, and he is killed. Later, two of his men, Guthlaf 
and Oslaf, return to Finn's country, kill him and carry 
Hildeburh back to her home. 

Wealhtheow again goes through the hall with the flagon, 

XVIII which she gives to Hrothgar. She also gives Beowulf a 
necklace, the greatest in the world, which, in later years, 
Higelac is to wear when he invades the Low Countries, and 
falls in fight with the Franks. The feast ends, and the 
company separate. 

XIX But now another horror comes upon them. Grendel's 
mother, a monster-wife, greedy to avenge her son, enters 
upon the hall, seizes and carries off Aeschere, the close 

XX companion and trusted counsellor of Hrothgar. Sending 
for Beowulf, Hrothgar tells him the news, and describes 
the enchanted mere in which the monsters lurk. If Beo- 
wulf will venture there he shall have farther rewards. 

XXI Beowulf accepts the challenge, and, with Hrothgar and his 
men, sets out for the mere. He arms himself, and Unferth , 

xxii 



now cured of his boasting, lends him his own sword, Hrunt- 

XXII ing, which had never failed any man in battle. Beowulf 
commends his followers to Hrothgar's care, and bequeaths 
his own sword to Unferth ; he then dives into the mere, 
and for a whole day sinks towards the bottom, attacked as 
he falls, by all manner of monsters. At last Grendel's mother, 
conscious of his approach, comes from her den, and seizing 
Beowulf carries him down to a cave where no water comes. 
There they fight by fire-light, but the sword will not wound 
the creature, and Beowulf, flinging it down, catches her 
by the shoulder and throws her to the floor. She pulls him 
down after her, and draws her knife ; but God protects 
him. 

XXIII On the wall of the cave he sees an old sword, of giants '^ 
forging. He draws it, and cuts off her head. Then he sees 
Grendel on the ground, dead or dying, and cuts off his 
head also, and with it and the old sword dives upwards 
through the blood-stained water. But in the poisonous blood 
the old sword melts like an icicle in spring, and only the 
hilt of it remains. Hrothgar and his Danes have gone home, 
and Beowulf's men are left sorrowing on the shore, watch- 
ing the eddies of blood in the water, when their Captain 
emerges. They disarm him, take up Grendel's head, and 
return to Heorot, where the Danes are at table with their 
King and Queen. 

Beowulf tells Hrothgar of the battle, and gives him the hilt 
of the old sword. Hrothgar exalts him above all men, and 
again contrasts him with the wicked King Heremod. All 
men are mortal, and earthly pride avails little, unless a man 
chooses the Way of God. For the last time, the Geats feast 
in Heorot, and then the weary Beowulf is led to rest. In 
the morning he restores Hrunting to Ecglaf, and announces 
that he must return to his own country, and to Higelac, his 
King. He and Hrothgar kiss one another and part, and the 
Geats go down to their ship and put out to sea. 

Higelac was a proud King, his house high and beautiful, 
his Queen, Hygd, very young, but wise ; unlike Thrytho, 
the Queen of Offa, who caused the death of her husband's 
courtiers, though some say that she, after her marriage, 
grew wise also. 

XXVIII The Geats land and make their way to Higelac 's hall, where 
they are welcomed by him ; Hygd, his Queen, gives them 
to drink, and Beowulf tells his adventures. He speaks of 
Hrothgar 's daughter, Freawaru, whom he saw in Heorot ; 
she is betrothed to Ingeld, son of Froda, a Heathobeard 
Prince, which may make for peace now between Danes 

POOC] and Heathobeards but may also lead to quarrels later. He 



xxni 



then relates his fights with Grendel and in the mere. He 
then brings in Hrothgar's gifts and offers them to his own 
lord, who gives him in return the sword of his father Hrethel, 
seven thousands of money, and a home. So Beowulf, who 
had been despised in his youth, and accounted slack, lives 
in prosperity with Higelac. 



Years pass. Higelac is killed, and Heardred his son ; Beo- 
wulf succeeds to the kingdom, and reigns for fifty years. 
Then a dragon which for centuries has lived in a burial 
mound, guarding a hoard of treasure, awakes and, finding 
the treasure disturbed, flies out over Beowulf's country. 
{Here the manuscript is much damaged by fire), A man un- 
named, a slave fleeing from punishment, has taken refuge 
in the mound, and has seen there all the treasures of some 
ancient and forgotten race, which the last survivor, mourn- 
ing his friends and despairing of his own life, had hidden 
there, so that they might never again be enjoyed by man. 
The dragon, who had found the place open, had lain there 
for three hundred years, and slept. Then this man takes a 
cup from -the hoard and offers it to his master. The dragon, 
in fury, comes out flaming, and burns the homes of the 
people and Beowulf s hall. Beowulf orders a shield of iron 
to be made him, and vows that he will go out alone against 
the monster. The earlier battles are recalled, by which he 
won his kingdom. 

Eleven men follow him to the mound ; he bids them fare- 
well, and recounts the story of his own youth, of Hrethel 
and his sons ; one of them, Haethcyn, had killed his elder 
brother with an arrow. Powerless to do justice, Hrethel 
pined and died. The Swedes then invaded the country, and 
Haethcyn was killed. 

Beowulf advances to the mouth of the mound, and chal- 
lenges the dragon, which comes hurtling out in smokfr and 
flame to meet him. Of his men, all seek safety in a wood 
save one, Wiglaf, son of Weohstan, who draws his father's 
sword, rebukes his companions, and wades through the 
flames to Beowulf's side. Beowulf's sword breaks, and the 
dragon rushes upon him a third time, and catches him by 
the neck. Wiglaf wounds the dragon, whose fire begins to 
slacken ; then Beowulf kills it, but himself faints with his 
wounds. He bids Wiglaf fetch out the treasure from the 
mound, that he may see it before he dies. Wiglaf enters the 
mound, and finds there great treasures, which he rifles and 
brings to Beowulf. Beowulf thanks God for them, and bids 
Wiglaf have a barrow made for him upon the Whale's 



xxiv 



Headland, looking over the sea. He gives him his own 
armour and dies. 

PJXXIX] The dragon lies dead beside him, Wiglaf w^atching over 
both, when the ten companions come shamefully from the 

XL wood. Wiglaf rebukes them bitterly, and sends the news of 

Beowulf s death to the rest of his people. The messenger 
warns them that the Frisians and Franks, who had killed 
Higelac, would now invade them ; the Swedes also would 
avenge the Battle in Ravenswood, where Higelac punished 
them for the killing of Haethcyn. Beowulf's body must now 
be burned, and the jewels with it. They go to the mound, 
and seven of them, \vith Wiglaf, enter the enchanted treas- 
ure-house. Wiglaf orders wood to be brought from near 
and far for the burning. The dragon's body is flung over 
the cliff. 

XLI A great pile is built up for Beowulf, and decked with ar- 

mour. His body is laid there, and burned. His wife (?) 
laments him, and foretells coming disasters. Then, for ten 
days, his men build a mound over the ashes, and bury with 
him the treasures from the hoard. Round the mound ride 
twelve champions, lamenting his death and proclaiming his 
worth. 



Finnsburgh 



(A fragment of the story summarised in Beowulf, lines 
1068-1159, beginning here with the last three words of a 
question.) 

Hengest and his men are surprised in their hall by the 
Frisians. — " Surely the gables are not burning ? " asks 
one, and Hengest (?) answers : ** This is not the light of 
dawn, nor a fiery dragon, nor are the gables burning. But 
they are coming against us, in clashing armour. Awake and 
prepare to fight." They go to the doors, Sigeferth and Eaha 
to one end. Ordlaf (? the Oslaf of Beowtdf 1148), Guthlaf 
and Hengest to the other. Sigeferth challenges the attackers, 
and they fight for five days, slaying many Frisians, but 
without loss to themselves, avenging the memory of Hnaef . 
One of them, wounded, makes his way to his King, vrith 
news of the battle. (It appears from Beowulf , 1 142-4, that 
Hengest was killed by an otherwise unknown Hunlafing). 



XXV 

r 



Waldere 



Hildegyth encourages Waldere before the fight, reminding 
him that his sword, the Mimming, Weland s masterpiece, 
has never yet failed any man powerful enough to wield it. 
Now is the hour of death or victory. Never in the past has 
she seen him draw back from battle. He has offered tribute 
to Guthhere, who has refused it. Therefore must Guthhere 
pay the penalty in battle. . . . 



II 

(Guthhere praises Waldere 's) sword, the Mimming, which 
Theodoric had owned, and had been minded to give, with 
other treasures, to Weland's son Widia. 
Waldere replies boasting that he has not been defeated by 
Hagena, and that he now defies the assault of Guthhere, 
trusting to God for protection 



Deor 

Deor, a minstrel, recounts the sorrows of Weland, who 
was imprisoned and mutilated by King Nithhad. But he 
escaped. Beadohild, Nithhad s daughter, had cause for 
sorrow, for Weland had outraged her, and killed her brothers. 
(By him she became the mother of Widia). But her sorrows 
passed. The Geatish King {} Nithhad) was maddened by 
love, which robbed him of sleep. But that passed. Theo- 
doric was for thirty years an exile. But that passed. Eor- 
manric, the cruel King, held many a man in captivity, who 
longed for the fall of his kingdom. That also passed. 
Those who sit in sorrow and misfortune must remember 
that God often makes the wretched happy and brings down 
the haughty. 

The poet himself, Deor, bard of the Heodenings, was 
cherished by his lord until Heorrenda robbed him of his 
inheritance. Yet this trouble also may pass. 



xxvi 



Widsith 

BEOWULF 

Finnsburgh ♦ Waldere ♦ Deor 



Widsith 

Widsith made utterance, / his word-hoard 

unlocked, 
He who most of men / among meinies on the earth 
And folks had wandered ; / oft on the floor he took 
Lovely treasure. / From the loins of the Myrgings* 
Offspring he arose. / He with Ealhhild 
Faithful Peace-Weaver, / on his first journey 
The Hreth-King's / home did seek 
From the East, out of Angel, / Eormanrice^s 
The fierce and faithless. / Began he then in fulness 

to speak : 

^* Of many men have I heard, / masters of peoples; 

Must every king / by custom live. 

One earl after another / his own home govern, 

He who his throne -stool / to thrive wishes. 

Of these was Hwala / awhile the best, 

i\nd Alexander / of all the richest 

Of man's kindred, / and he most thrived 

Of them whose fame / afar I have heard. 

Attila ruled the Huns, / Eormanric the Goths, 

Becca the Bainings, / the Burgunds Gifica. 

Caesar ruled the Greeks / and Gaelic the Finns, 

Hagena the Holm-Rugians / and Heoden the 

Glommas. 
Witta ruled the Swaefs, / Wada the Haelsings, 
Meaca the Myrgings, / Marchalf the Hundings. 
Theodric ruled the Franks, / Thyle the Rondings, 
Breca the Brondings, / Billing the Wernas. 
Oswine ruled the Eowas / and the lutes Gefwulf , 
Fin Folcwalding / the Frisian kindred. 
Sigehere longest / the Sea-Danes ruled, 
Hnaef the Hoccings, / Helm the Wulfings, 
Wald the Woings, / Wod the Thyrings, 



Saeferth the Sycgs, / the Swedes Ongentheow, 

Sceafthere the Ymbras, / Sheaf the Longbeards, 

Hun the Hetwaras / and Holen the Wrosnas. 

Hringweald was hight / the Herefaras' King. 

OfFa ruled Angel, / Alewih the Danes ; 

He was of those men / highest-minded of all ; 

Yet never did he over Offa / in earlship excel ; 

But Offa fashioned / first among men, 

When a young knave was he, / of kingdoms the 

greatest ; 
40 No one of an age with him / earlship mightier 
Wrought in the onslaught / with one sword : 
The march he measured / with the Myrgings 
By Fifeldor ; / thenceforth they held it. 
Angle and Swaef / as Offa drew it. 
Hrothwulf and Hrothgar / held the longest 
Union together, / uncle and nephew, 
After they had cast out / the kin of the Vikings 
And Ingelde's / army had humbled, 
Hewn down at Heorot / the Heathobeards' host. 
50 So I fared through mjuny / foreign lands 
Over the wide earth ; / of good and evil 
There I made trial ; / from my tribe divided. 
From my kinsmen far, / I followed men widely. 
Wherefore I may sing / and say my story, 
Mention before the multitude / in the mead-hall 
How kingly-good men / kindness shewed me. 
I was with Huns / and with Hreth-Goths 
With Swedes and with Geats / and with 

South-Danes. 
With Vandals I was and with Vaerns / and with 

Vikings. 
60 With Gifthas I was and with Wends / and with 

Gefflegs. 
With Angles I was and with Swaefs / and with 

Aenenas. 
With Saxons I was and with Sycgs / and with 

Swordsmen. 
With Whales I was and with Deans / and with 

Heatho-Reams. 



With Thyrings I was / and with Throwends 
And I was with Burgunds, / there a bracelet I had ; 
There Guthhere gave me / a gladsome jewel 
For my song in payment ; / 'twas no sluggard 

King. 
With Franks I was and with Frisians / and with 

Frumtings. 
With Rugians I was and with Glommas / and 

with Rome- Welsh. 
Also I was in Italy / with Aelfwine ; 
Who had of mankind, / in my hearing, 
The lightest hand / for laudable works, 
The heart least niggard / when rings were 

dealing, 
Brightest bracelets, / that bairn of Eadwine. 
With Saracens I was / and with Syrians. 
With Creeks I was and with Finns / and with 

Caesar, 
With him who the joy-burghs / by justice ruled, 
Wealth and good-will / and the Welsh kingdom. 
With Scots I was and with Picts / and with 

Skating-Finns. 
With Lidwicings I was and with Leons / and with 

Longbeards, 
With Heathens and with Haereths / and with 

Hundings. 
With Israelites I was / and with Assyrians, 
With Ebrews and with Indians / and with 

Egyptians. 
With Medes I was and with Persians / and with 

Myrgings 
And Mofdings / and Counter-Myrgings 
And with Amo things. / With East-Thyrings I was 
And with Eols and with Iste / and Idumings. 
And I was with Eormanric / all the time. 
There the Gothic King / was good to me ; 
A bracelet he gave me, / the burghers' lord, 
Wherein were six hundred / of smelted gold 
Coins reckoned, / counted in shillings ; 
This I to Eadgils' / ownership gave, 



To my lord and helper, / when to my home I 

came, 
To my friend as a fee / for that he furnished land 

to me, 
My father's heritage, / the Head of the Myrgings. 
And then also Ealhhild / another gave me, 
Ducal-Queen of the doughty, / daughter of 

Eadwine. 
Her laud was prolonged / through lands many, 

loo When I in song / was set to say 

Where I under the sky / had seen the best 
Gold-decked Queen / giving treasures. 
When Shilling and I / with sheer voices 
Before our royal Lord / upraised the song, 
When loud to the harp / the hit made melody, 
Then many men / whose minds were proud 
In words did say, / who well had knowledge. 
That they never a sweeter / song had heard. 
Thence I roamed over all / the realm of the Goths, 

no Sought I ever the best / of boon-companions ; 
That was the indwellers / with Eormanric. 
Hethca sought I and Beadeca/ and the Herelings, 
Emerca sought I and Fridla / and East-Gota 
Old and gallant, / Unwen's father. 
Secca sought I and Becca, / Seafola and Theodric, 
Heathoric and Sifeca, / Hlithe and Incgentheow. 
Eadwine sought I and Elsa, / Aegelmund and 

Hungar 
And the proud company / of Counter-Myrgings. 
Wulfhere sought I and Wyrmhere ; / full oft there 
war abated not, 

120 When the host of the Hreths / with hard swords 
By the Wistula Wood / must watch and ward 
Their ancient seat / from Attila's people. 
Raedhere sought I and Rondhere, / Rumstan and 

Gislhere, 
Withergyld and Freotheric, / Wudga and Hama ; 
Nor were they of comrades / the worst to me. 
Though I must name them / nearest the end. 
Full oft from that host / whining flew 



The howling spear / on a hostile people ; 
Wanderers, they governed there / by wounden 

gold 
Husbands and wives, / Wudga and Hama, 
So I have found it ever, / in all my faring 
That he is loved the best / by the land-dwellers. 
To whom God giveth / governance of men 
To have and to hold / while here he liveth/^ 

So wandering far / by fate are driven 

Men^s lay-singers / over lands many. 

Their thrifts say they, / thankful words speak they. 

Ever, south or north, / with some one meet they 

Apt in glees, / of gifts unsparing. 

Who before the fighters wishes / his fame to exalt, 

Earlship to achieve, / until all is scattered, 

Light and life together ; / laud he gaineth, 

Hath under the heavens / high fame and fast. 



BEOWULF 



WHAT ! We of Spear-Danes / in spent days. 

Of the Folk-Kings' / force have heard, 

How the Athelings / excelled in fight* 

Oft Shield of the Sheaf / from scathing hordes. 

From many meinies / their mead-stools tore. 

Affrighted them the Earl, / since erst he was 

Found, unwealthy ; / then friendship he awaited, 

Waxed under the welkin, / in worship throve. 

Until that each one / of those out-dwelling 

Over the whale-road, / must hearken to him, 

Gold must give him. / That was a good King. 

His offspring was / afterwards known, 

Young in the yards, / whom God sent 

The folk to befriend ; / the fierce dearth He knew 

They had ere then endured, / lacking elders 

A long while. / To him the Life-Lord, 

Glory's Wielder, / world-honour gave* 

Noble was Beowulf / (bloomed wide his name) 

Shielde's son / in the Scede-lands. 

So shall a young groom / work his own good. 

By full fees given / to friends of his father. 

That with him in his age / they may ever abide. 

Willing comrades, / whenas war cometh, 

To serve the people ; / by praised deeds shall 

One man thrive / among all man-kind. 

Turned aside then Shield / in the time shaped 

for him, 
Full-ripe, to fare / in Freaks keeping. 
Him then out they bare / to the brink of ocean. 
His sweet companions, / so himself had bidden. 
While his words had weight, / welcome friend of 

Shieldings ; 
A beloved land-chief, / long had he reigned. 



There in the roads / ring-stemmed she stood, 
Icy, out-faring, / an atheling's craft : 
Laid they down then / the lovely Prince, 
Bestower of bracelets, / in the breast of the ship, 
Their man by the mast. / There was a mass of 

wealth, 
Fretted gold ferried / from far away. 
Nor heard I of a keel / more comely-wise garnished 
With brave w^eapons / and battle -weeds, 

40 With bills and bymies ; / on his breast lay 
Many treasures / that must with him 
In the flood's keeping / fare afar. 
Nothing less / of gifts they allowed him, 
Of their possessions / than had those 
Who at his first faring / forth had sent him 
Alone over ocean, / an infant indeed. 
Still more, they stood up for him / a golden 

standard 
High over head ; / they let the holm bear him. 
Sent him to the Spear-Man ; / sad was their soul, 

50 Mournful their mood. / For men knew not 
How soothly to say, / men seely in council. 
Of their hero under heaven / who that lading 
received. 



I 

Then in the burghs / was Beowulf Shielding, 

Loved Lord of the People, / a long time 

Famed mid the folk, / (his father had elsewhither 

turned. 
Being old, from the earth) / until to him after was 

born 
Haughty Halfdane ; / he held while he lived, 
Grey-haired, war-greedy, / the glad Shieldings. 

To him four bairns / forth in order 
Awoke to the world, / the warriors' leader 
Heorogar, and Hrothgar / and Halga the kind ; 
Heard I that the other j was Owela's Queen, 
The Battle-Scilfing's / bed-companion. 

Then was granted to Hrothgar / good-speed with 

the host. 
Such worship in war / that his willing kinsmen 
Hearkened to him gladly / until the youth waxed 

great, 
A mighty band ; / it was borne on his mind 
That a Hall-house / he would have 
Made him by men, / a mightier mead-place 
Than men's oflFspring / remembered ever. 
And there, inside, / he would deal out to all. 
The young with the old, / as God had endowed 

him. 
Save the folk-share / and the fates of men. 
Then widely I heard that / the work was ordered 
Of many meinies / over this middle-garth. 
To furnish the folk-stead. / In time it befell him, 
Early among men, / that it all was ready. 
Of hall-places mightiest ; / he made its name 

Heorot, 
He who his word / had widely wielded. 
His boast he belied not, / bracelets he dealt them, 
Treasure at table. / Towered that hall 
High, its horns gaping ; / battle-heat it abode 



Of the loathly flame. / Nor was it long thereafter 
That the sword-hatred / of daughter's husband 
Against wife's father / should awaken. 

Hardly then / that ghost of horror 
Bore the delay, / he that in darkness abode, 
While he each day / their happiness heard 
Loud in the hall ; / there was sound of harping, 
90 Shrill song of the shaper. / Said he that knew how 
Men's origin / from of old to reckpn, 
The Almighty, quoth he, / wrought the earth, 
Our bright-seeming weald / in water embosomed ; 
Battle-Happy, He set / the sun and the moon 
For lights to lighten / the land-indwellers, 
And adorned all / the ends of the earth 
With leafy limbs ; / Hfe eke he shaped 
For each of the kindreds / that quickened do move. 

So then the people's men / dwelt in prosperity, 
100 Blessed and happy, / until one began 

Felony to fashion, / a fiend out of hell : 
Was that grim guest / Grendel hight, 
A mighty march-stepper, / who the moors held, 
Fen and fastness ; / through the fif el-kin's realm 
The wanchancy wight / long while had wandered, 
Since him the Shaper / had proscribed. 
On Caine's kin / He avenged that killing. 
The Lord Eternal, / for that Abel he slew. 
No joy found He in that feud, / but far exiled him, 
1 10 The Maker for the murder, / from out man-kind. 
Thence abominations / all arose, 
Etins and elves, / orcneys also. 
Likewise giants / that with God strove 
For many days ; / that doom He dealt them. 



ic 



II 

He went then to have knowledge, / when night 

was come, 
Of the high house, / how in it the Ring-Danes 
After beer-drinking / were bestowed. 
He found then inside / the atheling-band 
Asleep after supper ; / no sorrow they knew, 

120 Nor miseries of men. / The monster of unhealing. 
Grim and greedy, / was speedily yare. 
Fierce and furious, / and took forth from their beds 
Thirty thegns. / Thence a^in he departed, 
Happy in his haul, / homewards to fare. 
From amidst that destruction, / to visit his dwelling- 
Then in the dawn, / with the day's first light, 
Grendel's war-craft / was kenned of men ; 
Then were, after his gorging, / groans upraised. 
Much sound in the morning. / The mighty Lord, 

130 Jewel of athelings, / sate all joyless, 

Tholed his strong wrong, / thegn-sorrow endured, 

Whenas they looked / on the loathly traces 

Of the cursed spirit ; / that strife was too strong, 

Loathly and lasting. / Nor was it longer in time 

Than one night after, / again he accomplished 

More of murders, / and minded not 

Their feuds nor their force ; / too fast was he fixed 

in them. 
Then was easily found / he who elsewhere 
More roomily / his rest would seek, 

140 A bed mid the bowers, / for beaconed to them 
was, 
Soothly spoken, / by a simple token, ^ 
The hate of that hall-thegn ; / he held himself 

thenceforth 
Farther and faster / who that fiend outwiled. 



So ruled he them / and against the right fought 
One against all, / till that idle it stood, 



II 



The holiest of houses. / That was some while ; 

Twelve winter-tides / the taunt he tholed, 

The Friend of Shieldings,/ all forms of grief, 

Swelling sorrows ; / since when it was 

Openly known / to the offspring of men 

In gloomy glees, / that Grendel fought 

Awhile with Hrothgar, / waged hateful war, 

Force and feud / in the following seasons. 

Strife unceasing ; / nor in sympathy would 

From any man / of the Danish meiny 

Keep afar off that life-bane, / for a fee compound. 

Nay, none of the wise there / need wish for any 

Brighter boon / at the hands of the bane. 

A wanton wretch / was worrying them, 

A dark death-shadow, / the doughty and young. 

Snared them and netted them, / nightly he 

stalked 
The misty moors ; / men know not 
Whither hell's rune-spellers / hie in their 

roamings. 



So many crimes / man-kinde's foe, 
That awful alone-goer / often planned, 
Harsher humblings ; / Heorot he haunted. 
That bright treasure-hall / in the blackness of 

night. 
Nor to greet the gift-stool / might he go. 
Decked for the Creator, / nor have his desire ; 
1 70 That was much shame / for the Friend of 
Shieldings, 
Breaking of mood. / Often sate many 
Men rich in rune-lore, / their rede they pondered, 
What it were best / for the bold-hearted 
To frame against / their griesly fears. 



At whiles they vowed / in the heathen-tents 
Of idol-worship, / prayed with words 

12 



That the Slayer of Spirits / succour would send 

them 
Against that plague of the people. / Such was their 

practice, 
The hope of the heathen ; / 'twas hell they 

remembered 
In the thoughts of their minds. / Their Maker 

they knew not, 
The Dempster of deeds, / nor wist of Divine God, 
Nor indeed the Helm of Heaven / knew they to 

honour. 
The Wielder of Glory. / Woe worth him who shall 
Through slaying spite / his soul shuffle 
Into the clutches of fire, / and find no comfort. 
Nor wend thence a whit ; / well worth him who 

may 
After his death-day / the Divine Lord seek, 
And in the Arms of the Father / find refreshment. 



Ill 

So in that time-sorrow / the son of Halfdane 
Was seethed without ceasing ; / nor might the 

sage hero 
Win a change from his woe ; / was that warfare 

too stiff. 
Loathly and lasting, / that on the folk landed ; 
Need pressed them with grim hate, / of 

night-banes the greatest. 
Till heard from his home / Higelac's thegn. 
So good mid the Geats, / of GrendeFs deeds ; 
He was of man-kind's / meiny the strongest 
In the days / of this our Hfe, 
Well-born and waxing. / He bade him a 

wave-glider 
Good be got ready ; / quoth he, the great King 
Over the swan-road / he would seek. 
That mighty Lord, / since men he lacked. 

13 



For that way-faring / his wise fellows 

Blamed him but little, / though loved of them he 

was ; 
His high-mind they whetted, / watched holy 

omens. 
He had, good man, / from the Geatish people 
Champions chosen, / of those that keenest 
Might be found : / with fourteen else 
The sound-wood he sought ; / a sailor shewed 

them, 
A lake-crafty man / the land-marks. 
On time went ; / on the waves was their ship, 
A boat under bergs. / The boys all ready 
Stepped on the stem ; the stream was washing 
The sound on the sand ; / those seamen bare 
Into the breast of the bark / bright adornments. 
Wondrous war-armour ; / well out they shoved 

her, 
(Wights willing to journey) / with wooden beams. 

bounden. 
Went then over the waves, / as the wind drave 

her. 
The foamy-necked floater, / to a fowl best likened, 
Till about the same time / on the second day 
Her winding stem / had waded so far 
That the sailors / land could see. 
Shore-cliffs shining, / mountains sheer. 
Spreading sea-nesses ; / then was the sound 

crossed 
At the end of ocean. / Thereon up quickly 
The folk of the Weders / walked on to the fields, 
Secured their sea-wood : / their sarks rattled, 
Weeds of war ; / and God they worshipped. 
For that the way o'er the waves / so easy was. 
Then saw from the wall / the Shieldings' 

watchman, 
(He who the holm-cliffs / had to hold,) 
Them bear over the bulwarks / their bright 

targets, 



14 



Arms ready for action ; / amazement brake 

On the thoughts of his mind, / what men were 

these. 
Hied him then to the haven, / on a horse riding, 
The thegn of Hrothgar ; / in his hand he 

brandished 
Strongly his spear- wood, / and solemn words 

spake : 
*' What are ye / having armour, 
A band in byrnies, / who thus a tall bark 
Over the lake-street / leading, are come. 
Hither over the holms ? / Awhile I on the wall 
Have been set at the end, / the sea-guard have 

held. 
That in the land of Danes / no loathly foeman 
With men in ships / scathe us might. 
Not more openly hither / have attempted to come 
Any shield-bearers ; / nor the secret word 
Of our war-planners / wist ye readily. 
The consent of our kindred. / Never saw I 

comelier 
Earl upon earth / than is one of you, 
A man in his mail-coat ; / that is no hall-minion 
Made worthy by weapons ; / unless his visage belie 

him, 
An air unmatched. / Now shall I your 

Lineage learn, / ere leaving here ye 

Lying spies / into the land of Danes 



Fare forth farther. / Now ye far-dwellers, 
Mere-joiirneyers, / hearken to my 
Simple thought ; / swiftest is safest 
To let me ken / whence your coming is," 



15 



IV 

To him the eldest / made his answer, 

The wise man of the war-band / his word-hoard 

unlocked : 
26c ** We are a group / of the Geatish people 
And Higelace's / hearth-companions. 
My father was / famed among folks, 
A noble ancestor, / Ecgtheow namely ; 
He abode many winters / ere on his way he went 
So old from the earth ; / have him easily in mind 
Well-nigh all the wise, / this wide world over. 
We with loving minds / the Lord of thee, 
Halfdane's son, / are come to seek. 
The Helper of the lowly ; / be thou good to us in 

thy lore. 
270 We have with that mighty one / a mickle errand, 
With the Lord of Danes. / Nor shall aught of it 

doubtful 
Remain, as I ween. / Thou wist if it is 
So, as we soothly / have heard it said. 
That against the Shieldings / I know not what 

scather 
Deep-hidden, deed-hateful, / in darkest 

night-time 
Teaches by terror / troubles untold, 
Havoc and humbling. / To Hrothgar I may 
In the room of his heart / a rede impart. 
How he, old and bold, / may that bane overpower, 
280 If there should ever / end for him 

This baleful business, / boons come after. 

And the welling cares / wax cooler ; 

Or if, ever after, / a time of anguish. 

Throes of need he must thole, / while there it 

lasteth, 
Builded on high, / the best of houses." 
The watchman spake, / where his horse he sate. 
An officer unf earing : / '' Either way should 
A sharp shield-warrior / know how to skim 
Words from works, / one that well thinketh. 

16 



This I find, / that this band is friendly 

To the Lord of Shieldings. / Lead ye forth then 

Your weeds and weapons ; / the way I shew you. 

Likewise I call / the thegns my kinsmen 

From any foe / your floating bark, 

Your ship on the shingle / shining with tar, 

To hold with honour / till hereafter she bear 

Over the lake-streams / the man beloved, 

That wood with winding-prow, / to Weder-mark. 

To a man of good-will, / to such is given 

The heat of battle / hale to bear." 

Forth went they faring ; / the floater abode still, 

Stood to her cable / the stout-breasted ship, 

Fast at anchor. / The Boar's image shone 

Above the cheek-guards / chequered with gold. 

Bright, burned to hardness ; / the Boar kept watch. 

Battle-minded they snorted, / the men burst 

forward, 
Trooped down together, / till they the timbered hall 
Gold-decked and garnished / got in sight : 
That was the foremost / in fame among folk 
Of roofs under heaven / where the rich one abode; 
The light of it lightened / many lands. 
To them then the battle-hero / that house of bold 

hearts 
Shewed where it shone, / so that they should 
Bear towards it straightway : / that bairn of war 
Wheeling his steed / a word after spake : 
'* 'Tis time I fare hence ; / may the Father 

All-Wielding, 
With Rod of Mercy / rule you all 
Safe on your ways ! / I will to the sea 
Against wrathful warriors / watch to hold." 



The street was stone-paven, / steering a path 
For the men together. / Each mail-coat shone, 
Hard and hand-Hnked, / the ring-iron bright 
Sang in their sarks, / as soon to the hall, 

17 I 



In their griesly gear / going, they came. 
They set, sea- weary, / broad-sided shields, 
Hardened bosses / by that house's wall ; 
They bent then to the benches ; / their bymies 

rang. 
War-mail of men : / in a mass there stood 
Spears, seamen's armour, / assembled together, 

330 Ash-wood grey-tipped ; / was that iron troop 
Wealthy in weapons. / Then a warrior brave 
Of those athletes / their origin asked. 
'' Whence bring ye / these beaten shields, 
These grey sarks / and shutten helms, 
This heap of war-shafts .'^ / I am Hrothgar's 
Usher, arm-bearer. / Ne'er saw I from elsewhere 
So many men / in mood more bold. 
I ween that from pride, / not as wretches in 

exile. 
But sound in heart / Hrothgar ye have sought/' 

340 The great in daring / gave him answer. 

Proud Prince of Weders / a word after spake, 
Hard under his helm : / '* We are Higelac's 
Boon-companions. / Beowulf is my name. 
I wish to say / to the son of Halfdane, 
To the mighty Prince, / this errand of mine, 
To thy men's Elder, / if he will allow it us 
That so good a man / we may greet." 
Wulfgar spake : / (that was a Wendel chief ; 
The way of his mind / to many was known, 

350 His warring and wisdom) : / *^ That of the 
Well-wisher of Danes, 
Lord of Shieldings, / shall I ask ; 
Of the Bestower of bracelets / as thou dost beg 

me. 
Of the mighty King / anent thy coming ; 
And to thee, such answer / at once make known 
As that good man / may think to give me." 
He hied then in haste / where Hrothgar sate, 
Old and hoary / amid his band of earls. 
He stepped forth, strong-hearted, / till he stood 
by the shoulders 

18 



Of the Lord of the Danes. / He knew the law of 

the doughty. 
Wulfgar spake / to his willing Lord : 
^' Here are men faring, / far hence coming 
O'er the girth of ocean, / Geatish folk ; 
Their eldest one / the other athletes 
Name Beowulf. / And they do beg 
That they, my master, / may with thee 
Wrestle in words. / Wherefore withhold not 
Thy consent, / courteous Hrothgar. 
In their war-gear / worthy seem they 
Of earls' esteem. / Indeed that elder is doughty, 
He who the battle-men / has brought hither.'' 



VI 

Hrothgar answered, / Helm of Shieldings : 

'' I knew him / as a little knave ; 

Ecgtheow was the name / of his old father, 

To whom, to his home, gave / Hrethel the Geat 

His only daughter ; / it is his offspring now 

Hither hardily come, / a kind friend seeking. 

They said then, too, / the sea-farers 

Who the free gifts / to the Geats ferried, 

Thither for thanks, / that he had thirty 

Men's main-strength / in the mighty grip 

Of his hand, great-hearted. / Him Holy God 

For a signal help / hath sent to us 

To the Wester-Danes, / as I could wish, 

Against Grendel's grimness. / To this good-man 

shall I 
For his daring / treasures deal. 
Be thou hastening, / bid them in 
To my sight, this troop of friends / assembled 

together ; 
Say to them eke in words / that they are welcome 
To the Danish people." / Then to the door of the 

hall 
Wulfgar went, j the word announced from within : 

^9 . 



*' Bids me say to you / my Battle-Sovran, 

The East-Danes Elder, / that he your origin kens, 

And ye are to him, / the sea-waves over, 

Hardy of will, / welcome hither. 

Now must ye go / in your martial gear, 

Hidden under helmets, / Hrothgar to see ; 

Let your war-shields / here await — 

And your wooden corpse-shafts, / what comes of 

this word. 
Arose then the rich one, / many men round him, 
400 A picked band of thegns ; / some there abiding 
Watched over the war-gear, / as the hardy one 

wished. 
Sped they together / where the guide shewed them. 
Under Heorot's roof. / Strong-hearted he went^ 
Hardy under his helm, / till in the high-place he 

stood. 
Beowulf spake : / (on him the byrny shone, 
A steel net sewed / by the skill of a smith) : 
'' Hail to thee, Hrothgar ! / I am Higelac's 
Cousin and kin-thegn ; / much glory I claim 
That I gat in my youth. / To me was this 

Grendel-matter 
4 1 c On my own turf / openly told : 

Say the sea-farers / that this hall standeth, 
Holiest of houses, / to the whole of your men 
Idle and useless, / soon as evening-light 
In the house of heaven / is hidden away. 
Then prevailed on me / mine own people, 
The best-witted, / the men of wisdom, 
Hrothgar, Sire, / that I should seek thee ; 
For the main-strength / of me they knew ; 
Themselves had seen me / when scatheless I came 
42c Blood-foul from my foes, / when five I had 

bound. 
When I ended the etin-kind, / and in the ocean 

slew 
Nicors by night ; / narrow straits I endured, 
Avenged the Weders' sorrows, / (woes had they 

suffered !) 

20 



Ground down their grief- wishers. / And now with 

Grendel I shall, 
With that devil / decide, I only, 
The thing with the giant. / This now of thee, 
Prince of Bright-Danes, / will I beg, 
Safe-Guard of Shieldings, / a single boon ; 
Do not thou refuse me, / Refuge of Warriors, 
Dear Friend of thy folk, / now so far I am come ; 
That I may, I only, / with my band of earls, 
This handful of hardy ones, / cleanse out Heorot. 
Have I heard also, / how this horror 
In his wan-heeding / of weapons recks not : 
Hence I forswear / (so may Higelac 
My master to me / be blithe of mood,) 
A sword to bear, / or shield broad-sided, 
Yellow-boss to the battle ; / but with bare hands 

shall I 
Fight with the fiend, / and the forfeit be life 
Of foe against foe : / have faith he shall 
In a doom divine / whom death shall take : 
Ween I that he will, / if he be the winner, 
In this hall of fighters / the folk of Geats 
Eat, all unf earing, / as oft he did 
To the might of the Hrethmen. / Not for me 

needst thou 
Heap earth on my head, / for he will have me 
Drearily dripping, / if me death taketh ; 
When he beareth my bloody corpse, / thinketh to 

browse on it, 
Eateth as alone he goeth, / all unmournful, 
Staineth his moorland lair ; / nay, not for me 

needest thou 
For my body's treatment / take thought longer. 
But send to Higelac, / if me the struggle slay, 
This best of battle-shrouds / which my breast 

guardeth. 
Rarest of harness ; / it was Hrethel's leaving, 
Welande's working. / Goeth aye Wyrd as she 

will." 



21 



VII 

Hrothgar answered him, / Helm of Shieldings : 
** To fight in our defence thou, / my friend 

Beowulf, 
And from kindness / art come to us. 
Fought thy father / in many feuds. 
Happened he Heatholaf / to slay with his hand 
Among the Wylfings ; / then the Weder-kin 
For fear of harryings / might not harbour him. 
Thereafter sought he / the South-Dane folk, 
Over heaving seas / the Honour- Shieldings ; 
Whenas first I ruled / the folk of the Danes, 
And held in my youth / the gem-enriched 
Hoard-burgh of heroes. / Then was Heorogar 

dead, 
Mine elder brother / all unliving, 
Halfdane's boy ; / he was better than I. 
Since then the feud / with a fee I finished ; 
Sent I to the Wylfings / over the water's ridge 
Ancient treasures ; / oaths he swore to me. 
In my soul a sorrow / it is to say 
To any guest / what Grendel hath 
Of humblings for Heorot / in his hateful thoughts, 
Of sudden fears fashioned ; / the host of my floor, 
My war-band waneth ; / whom Wyrd hath swept 

oflt 
By greedy Grendel. / God easily can 
That dealer in madness / divide from his deeds. 
Full oft they boasted, / with beer drunken, 
Over the ale-bowls, / did my athletes. 
That in the beer-hall / they would abide 
Grendel's onset / with grim swords. 
Then was this mead-hall / in morning-tide. 
Gore-drenched, dear house, / whenas day 

lightened. 
The benches all / with blood were steaming. 
The hall with sword-drops ; / had I henchmen the 

fewer 
Dear and doughty, / by those whom death fordid. 

22 



Sit thee now to thy supper / and unseal thy 

thoughts 
The tale of thy triumphs / as thy tongue may be 

whetted.'' 
Then for the Geat-men / gathered together 
In the beer-hall / a bench was numbered ; 
There to sit / stout-hearted went they, 
Assured in their strength. / A thegn did service, 
He that bare in his arms / the ale-bowl beautiful. 
Poured the pure drink. / At whiles the poet sang 
High through Heorot ; / there was joy among 

heroes. 
No small draft / of Danes and Weders. 



vni 

Unferth spake, / Ecglafe's boy, 

Who sate at the feet / of the Friend of Shieldings, 

Unbound the battle-rune / (Beowulf's voyage was 

to him, 
Proud-minded mere-farer, / much annoyance. 
For he allowed not ever / that any other man 
More of glory / on this middle-garth 
Should hear, under heaven, / than he himself) : 
** Art thou that Beowulf / who with Breca strove 
On the wide sea, / in swinmiing wagered. 
When ye twain, so brave, / of the tide made trial, 
And for a dolt's wager / in the deep water 
Offered life up. / Nor any man. 
Nor friend nor foe / forbid you might 
That sorrowful sailing, / when on the sound ye 

swam ; 
Then was the water-stream / by your arm-strokes 

woven, 
Ye measured the mere-street / in mighty 

handfuls. 
Sped over the Spear-Man ; / splashed you the 

ocean. 
Waves of winter. / Ye twain in the water's realm 

23 



Seven nights swinked ; / he in swimming outdid 

thee, 
He had more might. / Then in morning- tide 
On to the Heatho-Raems' beach / the holm 
upbare him ; 

520 Thence he sought / his own sweet soil, 

He, loved of his people, / the land of Brondings, 
The fenced-burgh fair / where he had his folk, 
His burgh and bracelets. / All his boast with thee 
The son of Beanstan / in sooth fulfilled. 
So ween I for thee / a worse outcome. 
Though in war-onset thou / wert everywhere 

winner, 
A grimmer duel, / if for Grendel thou darest 
All night long / and nigh to abide." 
Beowulf answered, / Ecgtheow's boy : 

530 '* What ! Full many things, / my friend Unferth, 
With beer drunken / of Breca hast spoken. 
Hast said of his swimming. / In sooth I tell thee. 
That I of mere-strength / more have owned, 
Endurance of waves, / than any other man. 
We two quoth, / being little knaves, 
i!\nd we boasted / (we were both of us yet 
In the spring of youth), / that we over the 

Spear-Man 
Would dare our lives : / and even so did we. 
We held a sword naked, / when we swam on the 
sound, 

540 Hard in hand ; / against the whale-fishes 

We thought to ward us. / No whit from me 
Afar on the flood-waves / might he float, 
Hastier on the holm ; / nor from him w^ould I. 
Thus we two assembled / on the sea went 
Five nights forth, / until the flood scattered us. 
Weltering waves ; / and weather coldest. 
Darkening night / and northern v/ind 
Rushed on us, war-grim ; / rough were the waters. 
Was the mere-fishes' / malice quickened ; 

550 Then against beasts / my body-sark 
Hard, hand-locken, / help aflForded ; 

24 



A battle-rail broidered / on my breast lay, 
With gold engirdled. / Me to the ground tugged 
A foe, a fiend-scather, / fast he had me 
Grimly gripping ; / 'twas granted however 
That I the wretch / with my point should reach, 
With my battle-bill ; / the blow bare off 
A mighty mer-deer / by my hand. 



IX 

So round me often / the evil-doers 

Were thickly thronging. / I thegned it them 

With my dear sword, / as was their due ; 

Never their fill / with joy found they, 

Evil destroyers, / to eat of me, 

Nor sate to their supper / the sea-ground near ; 

But in the morning, / mangled with blade-wounds 

On the banks of ocean / up they lay. 

Soothed by the sword, / so that never since 

In the high fords / the sea-farers 

Might they let in their journeys. / Light from the 

East came, 
Bright beacon of God ; / the billows were smoothed 
Till the sea-nesses / I could spy. 
The windy walls. / Wyrd oft saveth 
An earl unfated, / who excels in valour. 
However, it so befell me / that I finished with the 

sword 
Nicors nine. / Nor by night have I heard 
Under heaven's roof / or harder fighting, 
Nor on ocean's race / of a man more wretched ; 
However, I felt the foe, / and freely escaped. 
Weary of wandering. / Then the sea washed me, 
The flow of the flood / to the Finnish land, 
The weltering waves. / Not one whit of thee 
Such armed turmoils / have I heard tell, 
Nor bouts with bills ; / Breca never yet 
In the play of battle, / nor the pair of you both 
So daringly / a deed performed 

25 



With shining sword / (I say it not boasting) 
Though thou tp thy brethren / a bane hast been, 
To the sons of thy house ; / wherefore in hell thou 

shalt 
Thy forfeit fulfil, / though fine be thy wit. 
590 I say to thee in sooth, / son of Ecglaf, 

That Grendel never so much / that is gruesome 

had wrought, 
That cruel creature / upon thy King, 
Nor humblings in Heorot, / if thy heart were 
Or thy soul as stern / as thyself thou tellest ; 
But he hath found / that for the feud he need not, 
For the cruel sword-press / of your people. 
Sit sorely troubled / by Triuraph-Shieldings : 
He takes pledges at need, / none he spareth 
Of the Danish warriors, / but he warreth at 

pleasure, 
600 Slayeth and swalloweth, / seeketh no vengeance 
From the Spear-Danes. / But speedily will I, 
How good and gallant / the Geats be now, 
In a match inform him. / Go he after who may 
To his mead high-minded , / when the morning's 

light 
Of an other day / over the offspring of men, 
The sun swathed in brightness / from the South 

shineth." 
Then was he joyful, / the Jewel-Giver, 
Grey-haired, war-haughty ; / In help he trusted, 
The Head of the Bright-Danes ; / heard from 

Beowulf 
61 The Herd of the folk, / his fixed purpose. 

There was laughter of heroes, / loud resounding ; 
Words were winsome. / Went Wealhtheow forth. 
The Queen of Hrothgar, / heedful of custom, 
Gold-decked she greeted / the grooms in hall : 
And that free-born wife / the flagon handed 
First to the East-Danes' / Friend and Elder, 
Bade him be bUthe / at that beer-tasting. 
Him, loved of his landsmen ; / he lustily took 
The feast and the flagon, / fortunate King. 

26 



Then went around / that Woman of the Helmings, 

To old and young, / gave each his share 

Of the treasure-cup, / till the time was come 

That she to Beowulf, / braceleted Queen, 

Noble-minded, / the mead-bowl bare ; 

Greeted she the Geats' Prince ; / God she thanked, 

Wise in her words, / that her wish was 

accomplished, 
That she on any / earl might reckon 
For comfort against the curse. / The cup he took, 
A war-fierce warrior, / from Wealhtheow, 
And then brake into speech, / for battle ready ; 
Beowulf made utterance, / Ecgtheow's boy : 
** I sware this oath / when I sailed on the ocean, 
In a sea-boat sate / with my soldier-band. 
That, once for all, / would I your people's 
Wish have wrought, / or warring have fallen. 
In the fiend's grip fast. / Fashion I shall 
Earl-like efforts, / or the end of the days 
Of me shall await / in this mead-hall/* 
To the wife that word / well-liking seemed. 
The gest of the Geat ; / gold-decked she went, 
A free-born Folk-Queen, / by her Friend to sit. 
Then was, after as erst-while, / inside the hall 
The proud word spoken ; / the people rejoiced. 
The conquerors clamoured, / till sudden it came 
That Halfdane's son / would go to seek 
His evening rest ; / he knew that the evil one 
That high hall / did think to harry. 
Soon as the sun's light / see they might not, 
Or, now descending / night over all. 
Shapes of the shadows / slinking came. 
Wan under the welkin. / The warriors all arose ; 
Greeted each one / then the other, 
Hrothgar Beowulf, / and bade him hail, 
Wield it in the wine-hall, / and this word quoth : 
** Never have I to any men / ere now entrusted, 
Since shield on fist / I first might shew, 
The noble-hall of Danes, / but now to thee. 
Have thou and hold / this hoHest of houses, 

^7 



Of thy fame be mindful, / thy might make known, 
660 Watch for the wrath. / Nor thy wish shalt thou 
lack. 
If all that effort / alive thou endurest." 



X 

Bewent him then Hrothgar / with his band of 

heroes. 
Help of the Shieldings, / out of hall ; 
He would, the War-Chief, / Wealhtheow seek, 
A Queen for his couch. / He had, the Kings' Glory, 
Against Grendel, / (so grooms heard tell) 
A sentinel set ; / who service did 
About the Danes' Elder, / offered watch against 

etins. 
However the Geats' Prince / gladly trusted 
670 In his moody might, / in his Maker's Mercy. 
Then he did off /his iron byrny, 
His helm from his head, / gave his hilted sword. 
Choicest of irons, / to his armour-bearer, 
And bade him hold / the battle-harness. 
Spake then the brave one / some boasting words, 
Beowulf the Geat, / ere to bed he went : 
** Not in the might of hosts / more meagre hold I 

me, 
In the game of war, / than Grendel's self ; 
Therefore with the sword to sleep / will I not send 

him, 
680 Nor of life dis-use him, / though all that I may. 

Knows he not the good ways / gainst me to strike, 

My round-shield to hew, / though rough he be 

In works of violence ; / but we two by night shall 

Set aside the sword, / if seek he dare 

War without weapons, / and then let Wise God, 

The Holy Lord, / on either hand 

The merit deem, / as meet He thinketh." 

Laid him down then the Champion, / a 

cheek-bolster took 

28 



The face of the earl, / and all around many 

A seely seaman / sank to rest. 

Not one of them thought / that therefrom he 

should 
His own loved earth / ever after see, 
The folk or the free-burgh / where he was fostered: 
For they had found / that far too many before 
In that wine-hall/ death had wasted 
Of the Danish people. / But to them the Divine 

One gave 
Webs of war-speed, / to the Weder-people 
Solace and succour, / that their foe they should 
Through the craft of one / all avercome, 
By the might of himself ; / in sooth it is known 
That Mighty God / all mannes-kind 
Through wide-time wieldeth. / Came in the wan 

night 
Stalking, the shadow-goer. / The shooters 

slumbered, 
They who the hall-house / should be holding, 
All but one. / This by each was known 
That them he must not, / If tliJr Maker willed it 

not. 
The ceaseless scather, / under the shadows snatch ; 
But he, waking, / in the wrath's defiance, 
Abode, boiling with rage, / the battle's outcome. 



XI 

Then came from the moor / under misty slopes 

Grendel gliding, / God's ire he bare ; 

Was minded, that murderer, / of mannes-kind 

Some to ensnare / in that solemn hall. 

Waded he undei^the welkin / till he the wine-house, 

Gold-hall of grooms / might get well in sight. 

With filigrees fretted ; / nor was it the first time 

That he Hrothgar's / home had sought. 

Nor ever in his days did he, / ere nor after. 

Hardier hero / nor hall-thegns find. 

29 ^ 



720 Came then to the house / that creature hieing. 

From delights divided ; / the door soon opened, 
Though with fired-bands fastened, / when his 

fingers touched it ; 
Burst he in then balefuUy-minded, / and boiling 

he was, 
The mouth of the room. / Rapidly after 
On its fashioned floor / the fiend was treading, 
On went he ireful, / in his eyes there shone, 
To leaping-flame likest, / a light unlovely, 
Saw he in the hall / heroes many, 
A cousin-band sleeping / couched together, 

73c A heap of friendly warriors. / Then his heart 
laughed out ; 
He was minded to divide, / ere the day came. 
That ugly devil, / in each and all 
The life from the limbs ; / then lust to him came 
Of feasting his fill. / Nor was it fated again 
That more he might / of mannes-kind 
Stomach after that night. / A strong wrong beheld 
Higelac's man, / how the mortal scather 
With his fearsome grip / would be faring. 
Nor that did the devil / think to delay, 

740 But he seized swiftly / in his first swoop 
A sleeping man, / unawares he slit him, 
Bit his bones '-cover, / his blood-streams drank, 
Swift mouthfuls swallowed ; / soon he had 
The unliving man / all polished clean. 
From his feet to his fingers. / Forth, nearer, stepped 

he. 
Took then with his hands / that highest-minded 
Hero at rest ; / reached out against him 
The fiend with his hand ; / he quickly held him 
With thoughts of envy, / and sate on his arm. 

750 Soon did he find, / that shepherd of felonies, 
That he had not met, / in Middle-Garth, 
In the ends of the earth, / from any other man 
A hand-grip harder ; / he in his heart 
Felt sore afraid ; / nor the sooner there-from 
might he. 

30 



In his mind was he fain / into the mirk to flee, 
The tribe of devils to seek ; / nor was his treatment 

there 
Such as in earlier days / he had ever met. 
Was minded then the gallant / mate of Higelac 
Of his evening-speech. / Upright he stood, 
And fast him held ; / his fingers were bursting : 
Etin was outward ; / Earl farther stepped. 
Meant he, so mighty, / whereso he might 
To wind aside, / and on his way thence 
Flee to the fen-lands ; / he knew that his fingers 

were held 
In a jealous grip. / 'Twas a joyless journey 
That the harmful-scather / to Heorot made. 
Dinned then the master-hall ; / and to the Danes 

all seemed it. 
To the chester-dwellers, / to each of the keenest, 
To the earls, an ale-drought. / Ireful were both 
Those cruel wardens. / The walls were crashing ; 
It was a great wonder / that the wine-hall 
Withstood the grim-fighters, / that to the ground 

it fell not, 
The fair field-dwelling ; / but so fast it was 
Inside and outside / with iron bindings. 
By sage thought smithied. / Then from the sills 

fell 
Mead-benches many / (my story tells) 
With gold finished, / where the foes grappled ; 
Nor weened ere then / the wisest Shieldings 
That any among men / could manage it ever 
Beautiful, bone-decked, / to break asunder. 
Or find out to unlock it, / unless the flame's 

embrace 
Should swallow it in smoke. / A sound ascended 
New enough ; / on the North-Danes fell 
An awful terror / on each and all. 
Who from the wall / to his weeping hearkened, 
To God's enemy greeting / a griesly lay. 
No song of triumph, / his sores bewailing, 



31 



Hell's bondman. / For held him fast 
He that of men was / in might the strongest 
790 In the days / of this our life. 



xn 

Would not the earls '-buckler / for any thing 

Let that quelling quester / quick escape him ; 

Nor his time on the earth / to any tribe 

Deemed he useful. / Drew then each 

Of Beowulf's earls / his ancient heirloom, 

And would his lordes / life defend, 

The marvellous Prince, / if so they might. 

For this they wist not, / when they waged against 

him, 
The hardy-minded / men of battle, 

800 And on every half / they thought to hew him, 

To search out his soul ; / that the ceaseless scather 

Not one upon earth / of the choicest irons, 

Of war-bills none / would there come near, 

For winning weapons / he had bewitched. 

And every sword-edge. / Must the end of his time 

In the days / of this our life 

Be sorrow-full, / and the foreign phantom 

Into the fiends' realm / far must travel. 

Then this he found, / who freely erstwhile 

81c In mirthful mood / against man-kind 

Had fashioned felonies, / he, foes with Cjod, 

That his live body / might last no longer, 

For him the haughty / mate of Higelac 

Had by the arm ; / so each to the other 

While he Hved was baneful. / Grief of body he 

bore, 
The wicked wretch ; / a wound in his shoulder, 
A swelling sore shewed ; / the sinews sprang out. 
The bones '-cover burst. / To Beowulf was 
The glory given ; / must Grendel thence 

820 Sick of hfe flee / imder fenland slopes, 

Seek a joyless dwelling ; / judged he surely 

32 



That his evil life / to an end was come, 
The tale of his days. / For the Danes all was 
After that fatal fight / fulfilment of wishes. 
Had he then cleansed, / he that came from afar, 
Wise-head and stout-heart, / the hall of Hrothgar, 
From jeopardy saved it ; / he rejoiced in that night's 

work. 
In his excellent strength. / To the East-Danes had 
The Geat-men's Prince / his proud boast 

performed, 
So that their miseries / all were mended. 
The sorrow of enmity / they had erstwhile 

endured. 
When in throes of need / they had to thole 
Taunts not a little. / 'Twas a token clear. 
When that battle-hero / the hand laid down, 
The arm and the oxter / (it was all there together, 
Grendel's grip !) / under the groined roof. 



XIII 

Then were in the morning / (my story tells) 
Around the mead-hall / many a bold man ; 
Fared the folk-leaders / from far and near 
Over wide ways, / a wonder to witness, 
The foot-prints of their foe. / That his life was 

finished 
Seemed no matter for sorrow / to any of those 

men 
Who his un-triumphant / track regarded. 
How, weary at heart / on his way from thence, 
In fight overcome, / to the fen of the nicors, 
Fordoomed and fleeing, /he had footed life's road. 
There was his blood / to the brink up-welling, 
Awful waves, eddying / all bemingled 
With boiling gore, / with blade-drops surged ; 
Death-fated he dyed them, / when divided from 

joys 
In his fenland lair / he laid down life, 

33 E 



His heathenish soul ; / there hell him seized. 
Came back there-after / the elder comrades 
And youngsters many, / a jovial journey, 
From the mere, so happy, / on horses mounted 
Boys upon bays. / There was Beowulf's 
Might proclaimed ; / many and oft quothey 
That south nor north, / two seas between. 
Over the endless earth, / never another 

860 Under the bowl of heaven / was there better, 
A round-shield warrior / more worthy to rule. 
Nor did they in their Friend and Lord / the least 

fault find. 
In glad Hrothgar, / for that was a good King. 
At whiles, great in battle, / they let gallop. 
Matched in a race, / their fallow mares. 
Where the field-ways / fairest were reckoned. 
Kenned and chosen. / At whiles the King's thegn, 
A man boast-laden, / of ballads mindful. 
Who almost all / of the olden sayings 

870 Could well remember, / fresh words would find, 
With truth entwined. / He took up his tale 
Of the coming of Beowulf, / cleverly weaving it, 
And spake with good speed / his skilful stories, 
Wrestled in words ; / well-nigh all he quoth 
That of Sigemund he / had heard them say, 
His mighty efforts, / unknown things many, 
The wars of the Waelsing, / his wide journeys, 
Whereof the sons of men / were scarcely aware, 
Of feuds and of felonies, / save Fitela by his side, 

880 When something of such matters / would he say, 
An uncle to his nephew, / for so ever they were 
In fighting times / faithful comrades : 
They had almost all / of the etin-kindred 
Sunk with their swords. / Unto Sigemund sprang 
After the day of his death / a deal of glory. 
Since, hardy in war, / the Worm he quelled. 
That herd of the hoard ; / under a hoary stone, 
An atheling's son, / alone he ventured 
A fearless deed ; / nor was Fitela with him : 

34 



However it was sent him / that his sword went 

through 
That wondrous Worm, / till in the wall it stood, 
A doughty iron, / and the dragon swooned in death. 
He had, that gallant, / so wholly gained. 
That the jewel-hoard / he might enjoy 
As himself listed ; / a sea-boat he loaded. 
Bare into the breast of the ship / bright adornments, 
Did Waelses son. / The Worm its heat melted. 
He was of wanderers / well the most famous 
In the houses of men, / a helper of warriors 
By his daring deeds : / so in days of old throve he. 
Whenas Heremodes / hardihood waned. 
His power and his prowess, / amid the Eotens he 

passed 
Into bondage of his foes / forth betrayed, 
Sent away swiftly. / Surging of sorrows 
Lamed him too long. / Throughout life he was 
A care to his own, / to his kinsmen all. 
So that often bewailed / in olden times 
The stout-hearted one's sailing / sage carls many 
Who on him, as a bulwark / against bale, had 

believed. 
When, son of their Kings, / he should come to 

manhood. 
Take his father's rulership, / reign over the folk, 
The hoard and the refuge, / a realm of heroes. 
Homestead of Shieldings. / He was by all — 
Higelac's mate — / of mannes-kind. 
By his friends more favoured. / But in felony the 

other was steeped. 

At whiles in races / the yellow roads 

The mares' feet measured. / Then was morning's 

light 
Thrust suddenly forth. / Fared soldiers many. 
Haughty-hearted, / to that high hall, 
To see a strange wonder ; / so himself too, the 

King, 
Out of the bride-bower,/ the bracelet-store's warden, 

35 



Trod forth triumphant, / with a troop beyond 

number, 
He, kenned and chosen, / and his Queen beside 

him 
The mead-walk measured / with her maiden-band. 



XIV 



Hrothgar spake ; / he to the hall going 

Stood on the steps of it, / saw the steep-pitched 

roof 
With gold made lovely, / and Grendel's hand : 
** For this ensign / to the Almighty thanks 
At once be offered. / Many evils have I borne, 

930 Gins set by Grendel ; / ever may God work 
Wonder upon wonder, / Warden of Glory. 
'Tis not any time / since I from none 
Of my woes did ween / that in the w^ide world 

ever 
I should reach a remedy, / w^hen, reeking of blood, 
This dearest of houses / sword-dreary stood ; 
Woe scattered wide / my wise men all 
Who weened not that they / in the wide world 

ever 
Might the folk's cloister / close to their foes. 
To demons and devils. / Now a doughty one hath 

940 By Grace Divine / a deed accomplished, 
Where all of us / might not ever 
Succeed, for our subtilty. / What ! Now may she 

say. 
Whosoever the woman be / who this warrior bore, 
The latest of his line, / if she yet liveth. 
That God of old / was gracious to her 
At her child-bearing. / Now, Beowulf, thee, 
Sagest of men, / as mine own son 
Will I love throughout life ; / good-luck attend 

thee 
With thy new kindred ; / be thou never in need 

36 



Of thy wish in the world, / while I am wielding 

power. 
Full oft and for less, / fees have I lavished, 
From my hoard have honoured / men less hardy, 
Feebler in fight. / Thy fame thou hast 
Made so great by thy deeds / that thy glory liveth 
For ever and all time. / May the Almighty with 

thee 
Deal ever kindly / as He did this day ! 'V 
Beowulf answered, / Ecgtheow's boy : 
'* We this mighty work / with great good will 
Fought and finished ; / fiercely dared we 
The rage of the unknown ; / rather would I 
That thou himself / mightest have seen, 
The fiend in his war-gear, / wearily falling. 
Hastily I, / as hard I clasped him. 
On his death-bed / thought to bind him. 
So that, gripped by my / muscles, he should 
Lie, for life gasping ; / lest his body leap from me. 
But him I might not, / for the Maker willed it not, 
Keep from his going ; / I did not cling fast enough 
To that fatal foe ; / too forceful he was. 
The fiend on his feet. / However his fingers he 

left, ' ^ 

His life to save, / and to leave us a sign of him, 
His arm and his oxter. / Nor yet did he any 
Happiness purchase, / a helpless wight. 
No longer he liveth / in loathly doings. 
Burdened with sins ; / but sore pain hath him 
In a grip of necessity / narrowly prisoned, 
In baleful bonds ; / there shall he abide, 
A monster foul with malice, / the mighty doom 
Which the Shining Maker / as sentence shall mete 

him." 
Then a silent man / was the son of Ecglaf 
In boasting words / of his battle- works. 
Since that the athelings / by that earl's strength 
Over the high roof / a hand could see, 
A fiendes fingers / before them all. 
Was the stem of each nail / to steel best likened, 

37 



Heathenish hand-spurs, / the battle-hardy one's 

Talon unholy ; / then each of them told 

That there was naught so hard / that hold him 

might, 
Nor old-tried iron / which from that ogre 
990 The bloody battle-fist / might break away. 



XV 

Then it was hastily / ordered that Heorot 

withinwards 
Be made fair by men's fingers ; / not a few were 

there 
Of wights and of women / who that wine-house, 
The guest-hall garnished. / Gold-broidered shone 
Webs on the walls, / wonder-sights many 
For every soul / that on such things stareth. 
Was that bright building / broken sorely 
Though inwards all / with iron-bands fastened, 
Its hinges sundered ; / the roof only still 

1000 Was whole and sound, / when the wanton one 
Foul with felonies / in flight bewent. 
Of life unhopeful. / Not easy is it 
To escape away, / make the effort who will, 
But each soul-bearer / shall be borne. 
By necessity bound, / of the bairns of men, 
Of the peoples on ground, / to the place prepared 
Where his dear body, / in its bed-lair fast. 
Sleeps after life's supper. / Then was season and 

reason 
That to the hall should go / Halfdane's son ; 

10 10 The King himself / would partake of the supper. 
Nor have I heard that a muster / of men so many 
About their booty-giver / bare themselves better. 
Bent they then to the benches, / abundant in wealth, 
With joy they feasted ; / and fairly tasted 
Many a cup-ful / the kinsmen of all there. 
Hardy of heart / in that hall so high, 
Hrothgar and Hrothulf . / Heorot within was 

38 



Filled with friends ; / no fashion of treason 
The Shielding-People / shaped that while. 
Gave then to Beowulf / the bairn of Halfdane 
An ensign of gold / to grace his triumph, 
Broidered shaft-standard, / bymy and helmet ; 
A mighty treasure-sword / many saw there 
Borne before that brave. / Beowulf took 
The flagon on the floor, / nor of that fee-gift 
Among the shooters / shamed need he be ; 
Nor have I heard that more friendliwise / four 

treasures 
Any gold-girdled / groups of men 
At the ale-benches each / upon other bestowed. 
About the roof of that helmet / his head's safety, 
With wires ywounden, / a wreath guarded 

without. 
That the file-sharp blades, / boldly aimed, might 

not. 
Shower- tempered, scathe him, / when the 

shield-warrior 
Should be going / against his foes. 
Bade then the Earls '-Buckler / eight horses 
With fashioned facings / upon the floor be led 
In under the barriers ; / on one of them stood 
A saddle, tricked out, / with treasures shining ; 
That was the captain-seat / of the High King, 
When in the play of swords / the son of Halfdane 
Was fain to flourish ; / never failed in the 

forefront 
His famous skill / when the slain were falling. 
And then to Beowulf / of both these riches 
The Prince of Ing's Friends / possession gave, 
Animals and weapons ; / bade him well to use 

them. 
So manliwise / the Mighty Lord, 
Hoard- Warden of heroes, /battle-horrors 

rewarded 
With mares and with metal, / so that never man 

may blame him. 
Who wishes to say / the sooth as is right. 

39 



XVI 

10 50 Then also on each / the Lord of Earls, 

Of those who with Beowulf / the brimming-sea 

travelled, 
At that mead-bench / bestowed treasures. 
Ancient heirlooms ; / and for that one he bade 
That gold be given, / whom Grendel lately 
With malice had quelled, / as more of them he 

would, 
Had not Wise God / their wyrd withstood. 
And the might of their man. / The Maker ruled 

over all 
The nations of men, / as now even He doth ; 
Wherefore is understanding / everywhere best, 
1060 Forethought of mind. / Much shall he find 
Of lovely and loathly, / he who long here 
In these war-days / the world brooketh. 
There was singing and sounding / assembled 

together 
Before Halfdane's / battle-headsman, 
The laughter- wood was touched, / the lay oft told, 
When of hall-pleasure / Hrothgar's bard 
Along the mead-benches / made announcement. 

'' By Finnes offspring, / when fear gat hold of them, 
The hero of Half-Danes, / Hnaef of the Shieldings 

1070 In Frisian fight / to fall was fated. 

No wise did Hildeburh / need to honour 
The troth of the Eotens ; / unsinning, she was 
Lorn of her loved ones / at that linden-play. 
Of her boys and her brothers ; / they bowed to 

their fate. 
Wounded with spears ; / that was a sorrowful 

woman. 
Nor without due reason / did Hocces daughter 
The Maker's Doom mourn / when morning came, 
When under the sunshine / she might see 
Her men lie murdered / where most she had held 

1080 Of joys in the world. / War took off all 

40 



Of Finnes thegns, / except a few only, 

So that he might not / in the meeting-place 

Fight one whit / in war with Hengest, 

Nor his sorry few / by fighting save 

From the Prince's thegn. / But they offered in 

payment 
That another place for him / they would have all 

ready, 
A hall and a high-seat ; / that half of the lordship 
They might own and share / with the sons of the 

Eotens ; 
And that at fee-givings / Folcwalda's son 
Every day / the Danes should endow, 
Hengest 's host / with rings should honour, 
With even so much / of massed treasures, 
Of fashioned gold, / as he the Frisian kin 
In the beer-hall / would embolden. 
Then they trysted / on the two sides. 
A fast peace-compact ; / Finn to Hengest 
In strength, unstriving, / with oaths did swear 
That he the woeful few, / by his wise men's decree, 
Would nourish with honour, / so that no man 

there 
By words or by works / should wreck the treaty, 
Nor by evil cunning / ever undo it. 
Though they their sovran's / slayer should follow 
Master-less, / as needs they must ; 
But if any of the Frisians, / fool-hardy in speech 
Of that murderous hatred / mindful were. 
Then the sword's edge / should avenge it. 
The pact was plighted, / and precious gold 
Borne up from the hoard. / The Army-Shieldings' 
Best man-of-battle / on his bier lay ready ; 
On that pyre was / plainly seen 
A blood-stained sark, / a Swine all-golden. 
Iron-hard Boar, / and athelings many 
Struck down by their wounds ; / some in the strife 

had fallen. 
Bade she then, Hildeburh, / that on Hnaefes pyre 
Her own self's sons / to the flames be sent, 

41 



Their bodies for burning / on the bier to don ; 
Her hand on his shoulder / sorrowed that lady, 
With lays lamented. / The lord arose ; 
Curled up to the clouds / of corpse-fires the 

greatest, 

1 1 20 Roared before the mound ; / their heads melted, 

Wound-gates burst open ; / then blood sprang out 

From bodies foe-bitten. / The flame all swallowed, 

Most gluttonous ghost, / those whom the war had 

gotten, 
Of both the folks ; / their bloom was scattered. 



XVII 

Departed those valiants / to visit their dwellings, 
Forlorn of their friends, / Friesland to see, 
Their homes and high burgh. / Hengest all through 
That death-stained winter / dwelt with Finn 
In strength unstriving ; / his homestead he 
remembered, 

1130 Although he might never / over the mere drive 

His ringed-stem ; / with storms the holm weltered, 
Warred with the wind. / Winter locked the waves 
Ice-ybounden, / till that there came another 
Year in the garths, / even as yet doth 
(What, surely, aye / observes the season) 
Glory-bright weather. / Then was winter scattered. 
Fair was the field's bosom, / forth went the exile. 
The guest from the garths ; / he of grief's avenging 
Sooner thought / than of sea-faring, 

1 1 40 If he a bitter meeting / might bring about, 
That the men of the Eotens / therein be 

remembered. 
So he did not refuse / the world's ruling 
When Hunlafing / the Hght of battle. 
The best of blades / in his bosom thrust ; 
Whose edges were / to the Eotens known. 
So to fearless-hearted / Finn befell 
Sword-death savage / to himself at home, 

42 



When the grim grappling / Guthlaf and Oslaf 

After sea-sailing / in sorrow lamented, 

Charged him with a share of their woes ; / nor 

might he the wavering life 
Hold in his breast. / Then the hall was bestrewn 
With bodies of foemen ; / Finn likewise was slain, 
A King mid his courtiers / and the Queen taken. 
The shooters of the Shieldings / to their ships 

carried 
All the inward furnishings / of that earthly King, 
Which in Finnes home / they might be finding, 
Sun-jewels, subtle-gems. / Then on the sea-way 
His courtly dame / to the Danes they carried, 
Led her to her people.'^ 

The lay was sung. 
The gleeman's gest. / Joy after arose. 
Bright grew the bench-sound ; / Bearers gave out 
Wine from wondrous vessels. / Then came 

Wealhtheow forth 
Going beneath a golden crown, / even where the 

goodly twain 
Sate, the uncle and the nephew ; / still were they 

each at peace together, 
Each of them was true to the other. / So there 

Unferth, too, the spokesman, 
Sate by the feet of the Shieldings' Father ; / all of 

them in his feeling trusted, 
That he had a cruel courage, / though he was not 

to his kinsmen 
Loyal, with the sword-edge playing. / Spake then 

the Lady of the Shieldings : 
" Take thou this flagon, / free-lord of mine, 
Heaper of treasure, / happy be thou. 
Gold-friend of men, / and to the Geats speak 
In mild words, / as a man should do. 
Be glad with the Geats, / of gifts be mindful ; 
Near and far, / thou now peace findest. 
Men have said to me / that thou for thy son wouldst 
Have this hero. / Heorot is cleansed. 
Bright hall of jewels ; / enjoy while thou mayest 

43 



Comforts many, / and to thy kindred leave 
Folk and kingdom / when forth thou must, 

i 1 80 To meet thy Maker. / I know mine own 

Gracious Hrothulf, / that our youth he will 
Hold in honour, / if thou sooner than he, 
Lover of Shieldings, / leavest the world : 
Ween I that he good things / will yield again 
To our own offspring, / if all he remembers 
That we two for his wish / and his worship of old 
When he was a child / in his honour planned/' 
Turned she then by the bench / where her boys 

were, 
Hrethric and Hrothmund, / and the heroes' bairns, 

1 190 The youths together ; / there the good one sate, 

Beowulf of the Geats, / by those brethren twain. 



XVIII 

To him was the flagon borne, / and friendly 

bidding 
Given in words, / and wounden gold 
Gladly offered, / arm-girdles twain. 
Rings and a garment, / the greatest of necklets 
Whereof I on this earth / was ever told. 
Nor under the sky have I / heard of any seemlier 
Treasure hoard of heroes, / since Hama bore off 
To that bright burgh / the Brosings' collar, 
1200 The crown and the casket ; / from the cunning he 

fled 
Of Eormanric, / chose the Eternal Rule. 
That ring had also / Higelac the Geat, 
Grandson of Swerting, / on his last sailing. 
When he under his banner / the booty guarded. 
Fenced the spoils of the slain ; / him fate sped 

hence. 
When in wanton pride / woes he suffered, 
A feud with the Frisians. / He that finery wore, 
Costly stones, / on the cup of the waters. 
Richest of princes ; / under his shield he perished. 

44 



Lay then in the Franks' keeping / the life of that 

King, 
His body's clothing / and the collar therewith ; 
Evil prowlers / his corpse plundered 
By the fortune of war ; / the folk of the Geats 
Held that field of slaughter. 

The hall filled with sound. 
Wealhtheow began then, / before the warriors 

spake : 
** This bended-work use, / Beowulf, beloved 
Youth, with good luck, / and this garment wear> 
The people's treasures, / and prosper well. 
Shew thyself in thy strength, / and to these 

striplings give 
Kindly rede ; / thy reward I will remember. 
So hast thou fared, / that far and near 
All their lives long / shall men esteem thee, 
Even so far abroad / as the sea is bowed about 
Windy earth-walls. / Be while thou Hvest 
A wealthy atheling ; / I wish thee much 
Store of treasures. / Be to these sons of mine 
Helpful in thy deeds. / Uphold them in happiness,. 
Here is every earl / by the others trusted, 
Mild of mood, / to the Master loyal, 
The thegns are kindly, / the commons all in 

readiness. 
Drinking, the nobles / do as I bid them.'' 
Went she then to her seat. / There was of suppers 

the choicest. 
Drank wine those wights ; / Wyrd they knew not, 
The forecast grim / that was falling upon 
Many an earl. / Soon as evening came. 
And Hrothgar bewent him / to his own home 
A rich man to his rest, / guarded that roof 
Earls unnumbered, / as often of old they had done. 
The bench-tree they bared ; / it was over-borne 
With beds and with bolsters. / Of the beer-sharers 

one 
Fey and fated / to his floor-rest bent. 
Set they by their heads / their shields of war, 

45 



Board-wood bright ; / on the bench there was 
Over each atheling / easily seen 
A battle-steep helmet, / a ringed byrny, 
A mighty spear- wood. / Their manner it was 
That they ever were / for war all ready 
Or at home or in the host, / or howso it might be 
Even at such times / as to their sovran lord 
1250 The need might come ; / that was a kindly race. 



XIX 

They sank then to sleep. / One sorely paid for 
His evening-rest, / as full oft it befell them 
What time the golden hall / Grendel haunted, 
And wrought unrightly / until his end came, 
Slaughter after his sins. / Then seemingly was it 
Known widely of men / that a wreaker of 

vengeance still 
Lived after that loathly one, / long time enough 
After the griefs and murders ; / Grenders mother, 
A woman, a monster-wife, / her woes remembered, 
1260 She who in dread waters / her dwelling must keep, 
In coldest streams ; / since Cain became 
With his blade the bane / of his only brother. 
The seed of his father ; / then forth into exile went 

he. 
Marked with that murder, / from men's joys 

fleeing ; 
In the wastes he wandered. / Awoke from him 

many 
Ghosts fore-ordained, / and Grendel one of them, 
That hateful sword -wolf / who in Heorot found 
A watching man / his warfare abiding. 
There was the griesly one / groping after him ; 
1270 Howbeit he remembered / his mighty strength. 
The gift firm-set / which God had sent him ; 
And himself to the Father's / favour entrusted, 
For comfort and kindness ; / whereby he 

overcame the fiend, 

46 



Felled the hell-ghost, / who gat him forlorn, 
From delights divided, / his death-place to seek, 
Man-kindes foe. / And so now his mother, 
A glutton gloom-minded / was for going 
A sorrowful voyage / her son's death to avenge ; 
Came she then to Heorot, / where the Ring-Danes 
1280 Through the hall were sleeping. / Then, there, 

swiftly, was 
A change for the earls, / when in on them charged 
Grendel's mother. / Was her grimness less 
By even so much / as a maiden's strength is, 
A wife's war-grimness / than a weaponed man's. 
When the hilted blade, / by a hammer beaten. 
When the sword blood-stained / the Swine on the 

helmet 
Of the enemy sheareth, / doughtily edged. 
Then was in hall / the hard-edge drawn. 
The sword over the seats, / and shield-rings many 
1290 Held fast in hand ; / of helmet he recked not, 
Nor of spreading byrny, / whom that horror 

seized. 
She was in haste, / would hie away thence 
For safety, as soon / as she was seen ; 
At once, of the athelings / one she had 
Fast in her fangs ; / then fenwards she went. 
He was Hrothgar's / dearest henchman. 
By the custom of comrades, / two coasts between, 
A rich shield-warrior, / whom she brake in his 

rest, 
A baron well-famed. / Nor was Beowulf there, 
1300 For another inn / was erewhile allotted. 

After treasure-giving, / to the mighty Geat. 
Arose shouting in Heorot ; / she in its blood took 
A hand they kenned ; / their care was renewed, 
Grew in the dwellings. / That deal was not good 
Which they on both sides / had to barter, 
The lives of friends. / Then was the learned King, 
Hoary warrior, / harshly minded, 
When his elder thegn / all unliving, 

47 



His dearest soldier, / dead he saw. 
1 3 10 Swiftly to the bower / was Beowulf summoned, 
The man of triumph ; / with the twilight of dawn 
Went mid his carles / the excellent champion, 
Himself with his comrades / where the sage King 
Wondered whether the Almighty / ever would 
After that chapter of woe / work him any change. 
Went then over the floor / the man famed in armies 
With his handful following, / (the hall-wood 

dinned) 
That he the wise one / in words might greet. 
The Lord of Ing's Friends, / might ask if so it 

was, 
1320 After this call in need, / that the night had been 

quiet. 



XX 



Hrothgar spake, / the Helm of Shieldings : 

** Ask not thou of our safety ; / sorrow is renewed 

In the Danish people. / Dead is i^schere, 

Yrmenlafe's / elder brother. 

My rune-binder / and my rede-bearer, 

Who stood by my shoulder / when we in the shock 

Fended our heads / in the footmen's onset, 

When crests were shattered. / So should an earl 

be 
Ever good ; / so i^schere was. 
1330 In Heorot was / the hand that slew him 

A wandering death-guest's, / nor wot I whither 
That terror, carrion-proud, / turned again 

homewards. 
In the fame of her feast. / She the feud has avenged 
Wherein thou, yesternight / Grendel quelledst. 
By thy hardihood / harshly clasping him. 
For that he too long / my loyal people 
Beset and brought low. / He bowed in the battle 
At the cost of his Hfe ; / and now another is come, 

48 



A mighty murdress, / her man would avenge, 

And farther hath / the feud carried, 

Wherefore may it be thought / by many a thegn, 

Who for his treasure-giver / in his soul greeteth, 

A heart-sorrow hard ; / now the hand low lieth 

That to each among you / yielded his desire. 

I the land-dwellers, / my loyal people, 

The sage men in hall, / I have heard them say 

That they have seen / such a twain 

Of mighty march-steppers / holding the moors, 

Ghosts of Elsewhere ; / one of them was, 

As with most certainty / they might perceive, 

In a woman's hkeness ; / the other, to 

wretchedness doomed, 
In a man's image / the exile-ways trod. 
Save that he was mightier / than any man other, 
Who in days of yore / Grendel was named 
By the field-dwellers ; / of his father they know 

not 
Whether any for him / was ever begotten 
Among ghosts of darkness. / In a doubtful land 
Dwell they, wolf-slopes, / windy nesses, 
Fearsome fen-paths, / where the force from the 

mountains 
Under misty nesses / netherwards floweth, 
A flood under the fields. / 'Tis not far from hence 
As miles are marked / that the mere standeth. 
Above which hang / rimy bowers, 
A wood fast-rooted / the water o'ershadows. 
There will, every night, / a wonder be seen. 
Fire in the flood. / There is none found so wise 
Of the sons of men,/ who has sounded those depths. 
Though the heath-stepper, / by hounds sore 

swinked. 
The hart strong of horn / the holt-wood seek, 
Put to flight from afar ; / life freely he selleth, 
His soul on the shore, / sooner than therein will 

he 
Hide his head. / 'Tis no happy spot, that ; 
Thence an eddying wave / ascendeth upwards, 

49 F 



Wan to the welkin, / when the wind stirreth 
Loathly weather, / till the hft darkeneth, 
The heavens weep. / Now wisdom belongs 
Again to thee only. / That airt yet thou knowest 

not, 
The marshes of fear / where thou mayest find 
That soul full of sins. / Seek if thou darest. 
1380 I will thee for the fight / with a fee reward, 
With olden treasures, / as erst I did, 
With wounden gold, / if away thou comest.*' 



XXI 

Beowulf answered, / Ecgtheow's boy : 

'' Sorrow not, old sage ; / better serves it that each 

^ man 

His friend's murder avenge, / than much mourning. 
Every one of us / the end must await 
Of life in the world, / let him win who may 
Fame before death ; / that is for a fighting man 
Whose life is over / thereafter best. 

1390 Arise, Realm-Warden, / let us run forth, 
Grendel's kinswoman / go we tracking. 
I swear to thee this / that she shall not escape me 
In folds of the earth / nor in mountain forests, 
Nor on ocean-ground, / go where she will. 
This day therefore / do thou have patience 
In each of thy woes, / as I wish of thee. 
Upleaped then the greybeard, / God he thanked, 
The Mighty Lord, / for what the man had spoken. 
Then for Hrothgar / a horse was bridled, 

1400 A charger with woven mane ; / the wise old Prince 
Went forth in state ; / stepped out the war-band 
Of shield-bearers. / The track was shewing. 
Along the wood-paths / widely seen. 
Footprints over the ground ; / she had gone for- 
ward 
Over the murky moor, / their mate-thegn had 
borne, 

so 



Of soul bereft, / the best of them 

Who with Hrothgar / the home had guarded. 

The son of the athelings / then went over 

Steep stone-cliffs, / strait passages, 

Single tracks, / a road untrodden, 

Beetling nesses, / nicor-houses many ; 

He went first, / with him a few 

Prudent men, / the plain to espy, 

Until in a trice / the mountain trees 

He found o'erhanging / a hoary stone, 

That joyless wood ; / the water stood under, 

Drumling, blood-dreary. / To the Danes all was, 

To the friends of Shieldings, / sorrow of soul 

For many a thegn / that he had to thole. 

Trouble for each of the earls / whenas i^schere's 

Head they met / on that holm-cliff. 

The flood surged with blood / (the folk saw that) 

With heart-drops hot. / The horn now sang. 

Sounding to battle. / The soldiers all sate ; 

They saw then in the water / of the worm-kind 

manv, 
Strange sea-dragons / swimming the sound, 
Also, on the ness-slopes, / nicors lying, 
(Who in the first daylight / often follow 
A sorrowful course / on the sail-road). 
Worms and wild-deer ; / away they hurried, 
Bitter and belching, / the blast they had heard, 
The war-horn yelling. / One the Yeats' Prince 
With his leaping bow / bereft of life, 
Of his strife with the waves, / so that stood in his 

guts 
The harsh war-arrow ; / he on the holm was 
Slower in swimming, / for death then seized him. 
Swiftly w^as he on the billow^s / by their boar-sprits 
Sharply hooked, / hard bested. 
Cruelly pressed / and pulled on the cliff, 
A wondrous wave-breaster ; / the warriors looked 
On their griesly guest. / Girded him Beowulf 
In the weeds of an earl, / nor recked at all of life ; 
He would in his war-byrny, / braided by hand, 

SI 



Broad and broidered with skill, / brave the deep 

sound ; 
Well could it shelter / the sheath of his bones 
That the battle-grip / might not his breast, 
Nor the angry clutch / his spirit injure ; 
But the white helmet / his head warded, 
Which on the mere's floor / was to mingle, 
i45<^ To seek the sound's tumult — / with treasure 

made worthy. 
With fine chains compassed, / as in former days 
The weapon-smith wrought it, / with wonders 

adorned it, 
Beset it with Swine-figures, / so that since then no 
Brand nor battle-blade / managed to bite it. 
Nor was that the meanest / of main-supports 
Wherewith Hrothgar's spokesman / helped him 

in his need ; 
That hafted blade / Hrunting was named ; 
'Twas one of the foremost / of ancient treasures ; 
Its edge was of iron, / etched with poison-twigs, 
1460 Hardened in the blood of hosts ; / never in battle 

had it failed 
Any man / whose arm had clasped it. 
Who the way of terror / dared to tread. 
The field of foemen ; / 'twas not the first time 
That an excellent work / it was to accomplish. 
Indeed he recalled not, / Ecglaf's kinsman 
Strong in might, / what he had spoken before, 
With wine drunken, / when that weapon he lent 
To a better swordsman ; / himself, he durst not 
Under the rush of the waves / risk his life, 
1470 Act with lordship ; / lost he thereby glorj'-, 

.An excellent fame ; / 'tv^^as not so with the other 
When he for the assault / had armed himself. 



XXII 

Beowulf spake, / Ecgtheow's boy : 

'' Bethink thee now, mighty / man of Halfdane, 

5^ 



Duke most wise, / now that for the deed am I ready, 
Gold-friend of thy lads, / of what lately we said 
That if I should, / sharing thy need, 
Of life be stripped, / thou wouldst stand to me 

ever, 
When forth I have fared, / in a father's place. 
1480 Do thou be kind / to my kinsmen-thegns, 

My boon-companions, / if me the battle take ; 
Do thou also the treasures / that in tribute thou 

gavest me, 
Hrothgar dearest, / to Higelac send. 
May he learn then from that gold, / the Lord of 

the Geats, 
May Hrethel's son see, / when on that hoard he 

stareth. 
That I had found / a fine and good 
Jewel-giver, / and had joy while I might. 
And do thou let Unferth / the old heirloom, 
The well-wrought wave-sword, / — ^ widely 

known man 
1490 Have that hard edge. / For me, I with Hrunting 
Glory will gain, / or death shall get me." 
After those words / the Weder-Geats* Prince 
Sped boldly on , / nor any answer 
Would he abide ; / the brimming flood whelmed 
That man of battle. / 'Twas the breadth of a day 
Ere he might get / to the ground beneath. 
Soon found she out /who the flood's extent 
Had held, a sword-glutton, / an hundred seasons, 
Grim and greedy, / that some groom there 
1 500 That home of else-things / over head was scouting. 
She groped then towards him ; / the warrior gripped 
In an awful clutch ; / not at all might she scathe 
His hale body ; / the rings without guarded him, 
So that through his coat of mail / she might not 

come at him, 
Through the locken limb-sark / with loathly 

fingers. 
Bare then the mer-wolf, / when to the bottom she 

came, 

S3 



The ringed Prince / to her own place, 
So that he might not, / for all his proud mind. 
Wield his weapons ; / for such wondrous things 
1 510 Swinked him in the sound, / sea-deer many 
With worrying tusks / his war-sark tare. 
Chased him the creatures. / Then the earl knew 
That he was in some or other / enemy's hall, 
Where no water / a whit might scathe him. 
Nor, for the hall's roof, / might get hold upon 

him 
The fierce grip of the flood ; / fire-light he saw, 
A blinding gleam / that brightly shone. 
The good one grew ware then / of the 

ground-lying wolf, 
A mighty mer-wife ; / a main-stroke he gave her 
1520 With his sword of battle, / nor its swing did his 

hand withhold, 
Till the ring-set sword / rang out on her head 
A greedy war-lay. / Then her guest found 
That his battle-gleamer / would not bite. 
Nor fetch to her heart, / but the edge of it failed 
The lord in his need. / It had lasted many 
Hard-fought meetings, / helms oft had shorn. 
Fated-men's war-coats ; / this was the first time 
For the goodly weapon / that its glory waned. 
Still was he purposeful, / of his prowess lost 

nothing ; 
1530 Of his honour mindful / was Higelac's mate. 

Threw down then the banded sword / with jewels 

blended 
That angry warrior, / so that on the earth it lay, 
Stiff and steel-edged. / In his strength he trusted, 
Hand-muscles of might. / So a man should do 
Then when in war / he thinketh to win 
Lasting praise / nor of his life recketh. 
Caught then by the shoulder / (for the fight he 

cared not) 
The War-Geats' Master / Grendel's mother ; 
Flung he then, battle-hardy, / so furious was he, 
1540 The foe of his Hfe, / till she lay on the floor. 

54 



She quickly again / requited his handiwork 
With her grim grip, / and against him reached. 
Stooped over then wearily / the strongest of 

warriors, 
The foot-men's champion, / until that he fell. 
Sate she then on the hall-guest / and her saxe she 

drew. 
Broad and brown-edged ; / her bairn she 'Id 

avenge, 
Her only offspring. / Over his arm there lay 
A woven breast-net ; / that warded his life. 
Withstood the entry / of point and of edge. 
1550 Then had sped / the son of Ecgtheow. 

Beneath the wide ground, / the Geatish champion, 
If his battle-byrny / had not brought him help, 
A hard war-net ; / did not Holy God 
Rule the winning of wars. / The Wisest Lord, 
The Justice of Heaven / judged it aright 
Easily ; / so up he stood. 



xxni 

He saw then among the armour / a sword rich in 

victories. 
An old Eotenish blade, / doughty of edge, 
To warriors worshipful ; / 'twas the choicest of 

weapons, 
1560 But it was mightier / than any man other 
Into the play of battle / might have borne. 
Good and glorious, / giants' work. 
He seized then the belted hilt ; / that Wolf of the 

Shieldings, 
Rough and war-rude, / the ringed blade drew ; 
Hopeless of living, / with heat he struck 
So that hard it gripped / her on the neck. 
Her bone-rings brake ; / the bill went through all 
Her fated flesh-cover ; / on the floor she crashed. 
The sword was sweating ; / the soldier rejoiced 

in his work. 

55 



1570 A flash was kindled, / light filled it within, 
Even so as from the sky / brightly shineth 
The Candle of Heaven. / He looked through the 

house. 
Turned then to the wall ; / the weapon heaved he, 
Hard, by the hilt, / Higelac's thegn, 
Angry, one-minded. / That edge was not 

worthless 
To the man of war, / for at once he would 
Settle with Grendel / the many assaults 
That he had wrought / on the Wester-Danes, 
Far more often / than one time only, 
1580 When he Hrothgar's / hearth-companions 
Slew in their slumber, / swallowed sleeping 
Fifteen men / of the folk of Danes, 
And others also / carried out, 
A loathly loot. / For that loss repaid him 
The raging champion, / inas resting he saw 
Grendel lie, / of war grown weary. 
All unliving, / as erstwhile had left him 
The battle in Heorot. / His body sprang aside 
When he after death / endured that stroke 
1590 The hardy sword-swing ; / then he carved off his 

head. 
Soon they saw, / the subtle churls, 
They who with Hrothgar / on the holm were 

gazing, 
That the eddying waves / all were mingled, 
The water blood-foul. /White of hair 
The elders about the good one / said together 
That they expected not ever / of that atheling 
That he, swelled with conquest, / would come to 

seek 
Their mighty Prince, / for to many it seemed 
That the wolf of the brine / had broken him up. 
1 600 Then came nones of the day ; / from the ness 

departed 
The haughty Shieldings. / Went homewards from 

thence 
The Gold-Friend of men. / The guests were sitting 

56 



Sick in mind, / and staring on the mere ; 

They feared, and they felt not / that their friend 

and lord 
Himself they might see. / Then that sword began 
From the sweat of death / in icicle drops, 
The war-bill, to wane ; / that was something 

wondrous 
That it all melted, / to ice most likened 
When the bond of frost / the Father unlooseth, 
1 6 1 o Unwindeth the whirlpool-ropes , / He that wieldeth 
Times and climes. / That is a true Creator ! 
Nor took he in those places, / the Weder-Geats 

Prince, 
More of rich treasures, / though many he saw there, 
But that head / and the hilt therewith 
Medalled and jewelled./ The sword was now melted, 
Burned up the patterned blade ; / the blood was 

so hot. 
So deadly the strange spirit / that had swooned 

there in death. 
Soon was he swimming, / he who was saved from 

the struggle, 
The onslaught of his enemies ; / up he dived 

through the water. 
1620 The eddying waves / all were cleansed, 

The spreading tracts / where the stranger-spirit 
Finished his lifetime / and this fleeting state. 
Came then to the shore / that Helm of Sailors, 
Strong of heart, swimming, / in his sea-spoil 

rejoicing. 
In the mighty burden / that he brought up with him. 
Going then towards him, / God they thanked. 
The gallant band of thegns / were glad of their 

Prince, 
That they might see him / safe and sound. 
Then from that bold one / bymy and helmet 
1630 Were hastily loosened. / The lake grew smooth. 
Water under the welkin, / weltering with blood. 
Fared they forth thence / the foot-paths over. 
Fain of mind / the field-way measured, 

57 



Streets well-known, / those kingly-bold men ; 
From that holm-cliff / the head they bare, 
No easy thing / for any among them, 
The fiercest-minded ; / four of them must 
Swinking carry / on a killing-shaft 
Grendel's head / to the golden hall, 

1640 Until there quickly / came to that hall 
Fierce, whetted to fight, / four and ten 
Geats a-going ; / their Guardian with them, 
Proud-minded among his troop, / the mead-plains 

trod. 
Then came and entered / that elder among thegns, 
A deed-keen man, / and duly cherished, 
A hero, battle-hardy, / Hrothgar to greet. 
Then into the house / by the hair was borne 
Grendel's head, / where the host were drinking, 
Awful before the earls / and that lady also ; 

165c On a wondrous prospect / the warriors peered. 



XXIV 

Beowulf made utterance, / Ecgtheow's boy : 
** What ! we to thee this sea-booty, / son of 

Halfdane, 
Lord of Shieldings, / lustily bring 
In token of triumph, / whereto here thou lookest. 
I all unsoftly / escaped alive. 
In war under water / work I dared 
That was not easy ; / almost was 
My warring finished, / had not God me warded. 
Nor might I in the heat of it / with Hrunt-ing 
1660 Work any whit, / though that weapon be worthy ; 
But to me granted / the Guardian of men 
That on the wall I saw / seemly hanging 
An old sword and good / (oftenmost has He guided 
When friends are wanting), / so that weapon I drew. 
Slew I in that onslaught, / as the chance offered, 
The keepers of the house. / Then that killing blade 

S8 



Burned away, braided mail, / as the blood 

out-sprang. 
Hottest of battle-sweat. / I the hilt thereof 
Fetched away from my foes, / avenged their felonies, 
1670 The death-qualms of Danes, / as it was due. 

I to thee therefore vow it, / that thou in Heorot 

mayest 
Sorrowless slumber / with thy soldier-band, 
And each of the thegns / of thy people. 
The doughty and young ; / and that dread them 

thou needest not. 
Prince of Shieldings, / from those parts, 
A death-bane to earls, / as of old thou didst. '^ 
Then the golden hilt / to the grey warrior, 
The hoary host-leader, / into his hand was given, 
Giants' ancient work ; / it to the ownership passed, 
1680 After the devils were lost, / of the Danish Lord, 
Wonder-smiths' work ; / and when gave up this 

world 
That grim-hearted groom, / God's adversary. 
Murder-guilty, / and his mother eke, 
To his keeping it went— / of the Kings of the 

world 
To the seemliest, / two seas between. 
Of those who on Sceden-ig / scattered wealth. 
Hrothgar answered^ — / the hilt he scanned. 
An ancient heirloom / whereon was the origin 

written 
Of the former warring / when the flood destroyed, 
1690 Gushing ocean, / the Giants' kin ; 

Fearlessly fared they ; / that folk was foreign 
To the Lord Eternal ; / to them that ending 

payment 
By the welling waters / our Wielder sent. 
So too on the sword-guard / of shining gold 
By runic staves / aright was marked 
Was set and said / for whom the sword, 
Choicest of irons, / had of old been worked 
With wreathed hilt and worm-pattern. / Then 

spake the wise 

59 



Son of Halfdane ; / were silent all : 
1700 " That, lo ! may he say / who soothly and right 
Frames for his folk, / all far things remembers, 
An old hearth -warden, / that this earl was 
Born of the best. / Thy bloom is upraised 
Beyond the wide ways, / my welcome Beowulf, 
Thine over every people. / AH of it in patience 

thou holdest. 
Thy might with wisdom of mind. / I shall grant 

thee my 
Pact, as at first we promised ; / Thou shalt 

protection furnish 
All through time / to thine own tribe, 
A helper of heroes. / Nor was Heremod such 
1 710 To Ecgwela's heirs, / to the Honour- Shieldings ; 
Nor waxed he for their welfare, / but for wanton 

slaughter 
And for death-qualms / of the Danish people ; 
He brake, with boiling mind, /his board-companions, 
Who had stood by his shoulder, / until alone he 

stepped, 
A famous Prince, / men's pleasures from. 
Though him Mighty God / in the joys of mastery, 
In strength, exalted / over all men else. 
Helped and held him, / yet in his heart there grew 
A blood-rough breast-hoard ; / no bracelets gave he 
1 720 To the Danes, as was due ; / undelighting abode he, 
So that he from that turmoil / trouble suffered, 
A lasting folk-sorrow. / Do thou learn by that ; 
Get thee manly goodness ; / I this gossip for thee 
Have worded, old in winters. / A wonder it is to 

say 
How Mighty God / o'er mannes-kind 
By His Wide Spirit / wisdom spreadeth, 
Earth and earlship ; / all things He wieldeth. 
At whiles He in love / letteth turn 
His Mind-Thoughts to a man / of mighty kindred, 
1730 Giveth to his ownership / earthly joys, 

A hedged-burgh of men / for him to hold, 
Doth so for his wielding / a deal of the world, 

60 



A spreading kingdom, / that himself man cannot 
In his unwisdom / think of the end. 
Dwelleth he in wealth ; / no whit him darkeneth 
Illness nor oldness, / nor anguish of enemies 
Staineth his soul, / nor strife anywhere, 
Weapon-hate, sheweth, / but all of the world 
Works for his will. / Nothing worse he knoweth, 



XXV 

1740 Until within him / an overweening part 

Waxes and swells, / when the warden slumbers, 
The souFs shepherd ; / is that sleep too fast, 
Netted in sorrows, / the Slayer is very near, 
Who from his arrow-bow / angrily shooteth. 
Then is he, in his strength, / struck, under his 

helmet 
By the cruel shaft ; / to shield him he knows not 
From the crooked wonder-biddings / of the cursed 

ghost ; 
Thinketh he too little / what long he hath held ; 
His bold mind is greedy, / never for a boast giveth 

he 
1 750 Fashioned rings, / and then he the fate fore-shapen 
Forgetteth and forgoeth, / for that God erstwhile 

gave him. 
Glory's Wielder, / a share of worship. 
At the end of the tale, / after, it happeneth 
That the flesh of his body / fleeting faileth, 
Falleth fated ; / followeth him another. 
Who not tearfully / the treasure divideth, 
That earPs ancient- wealth, / nor the awe of him 

heedeth. 
Bestir thee against that balefulness, / lovely 

Beowulf, 
Best of men, / and the more blessed way choose 

thee, 
1760 Honour eternal ; / incline not to haughtiness, 
Manly champion. / Now is thy might in bloom 

61 



A while only ; / soon after it may be 

That thee sickness or sword / of thy sovranty 

sunder, 
Or fire's fingers, / or flood's welling, 
Or force of blade, / or flight of spear. 
Or bitter age ; / or the eyes' brightness 
Forsake and o'ershadow thee ; / swiftly it shall be 
That thee, duke of men, / death overpowereth. 
So I the Ring-Danes / an hundred seasons 

1770 Have wielded under the welkin, / and from wars 
have locked them. 
From many meinies / over this middle-garth 
With ash-wood and edged-sword, / so that I not 

any 
Enemy counted / under heaven's arch. 
What ! to me in my chamber / came a change, 
Gloom after gladness, / since Grendel was, 
An old adversary, / invading me ; 
I by his questing / constantly bore 
Mind-care mickle. / To the Maker be thanks, 
Eternal Lord, / that I in Hfe have abode 

1780 Until I on his head, / hacked by the sword. 

After the old struggle / with my eyes may stare. 

Go now to thy seat, / the supper-joy share. 

Worshipful in war ; / for us shall a wealth 

Of treasure be measured, / when morning comes." 

Geat was glad-minded, / soon did he go 

To take his seat, / as the trusty one bade him. 

Then was, after as erst, / for the valiant in action, 

For the floor-sitters / fairly furnished 

A new feast. / Night's helmet lowered 

1790 Dark over the kinsmen. / The company all arose ; 
Would that blanched head / his bed discover, 
The aged Shielding. / Before all things the Geat, 
Rough shield-warrior, / for rest was longing ; 
Weary of his swimming, / swiftly the hall-thegn 
Guided him forth, / who was come from far ; 
He that worshipfully / watched over all 
The needs of a thegn, / such things as in those 
days 

62 



Sea-wanderers / might be wanting. 

Rested him then, roomy-hearted ; / the roof 

towered, 
Gaping and gold-decked ; / the guest within slept, 
Until the black raven / of heaven's blessings 
Boded, blithe-hearted ; / then came brightly 

scattering 
The sun over the hills, j The soldiers hastened ; 
Were the athelings / again to their people 
Fain to be faring : / far thence would he, 
The bold-hearted stranger, / seek out his bark. 
Bade then the hardy one / to gird on Hrunting 
Ecglafs son, / his sword bade him take. 
Lovely iron ; / for the loan he thanked him. 
Quoth he, that battle-friend / a fine one he 

reckoned. 
Strong in war ; / in no words blamed he 
The edge of that blade, / 'Twas a brave-minded 

man. 
And when ready to travel, / trapped in their 

armour. 
Were the warriors, / went, worshipped of Danes, 
The atheling to the upmost place, / where the 

other was ; 
The hero battle-haughty / Hrothgar greeted. 



XXVI 

Beowulf made utterance, / Ecgtheow's boy : 

** Now we sea-wanderers / wish to say, 

Come from far, / that forth we will go 

Higelac to find ; / here were we fitly 

Housed, as we wished ; / well hast thou done by 

us. 
If then I on this earth / may one whit 
More attain / of thy mind's love, 
Duke of men, / than I yet have done, 
For striving in war / I am willing straightway. 
If I should learn, / over the lane of ocean, 

63 



That on thee thy neighbours / throng with terrors, 

As, hating thee, / awhile they did, 

I to thee a thousand / thegns shall bring, 

183c Heroes to help thee. / Of Higelac I wot, 

Of the Yeatish lord, / though young he be, 
The Folk's Shepherd, / that he will so frame for me 
Words and works, / that well may I worship thee, 
And to thy support / my spear-shaft bear. 
My might for thy comfort, / when men thou 

era vest. 
If then Hrethric himself / in the House of the Geats 
Muster, a King's son, / he may there many 
Friendships find ; / far-countries are 
Seemliest sought / by whomso himself is doughty." 

1 840 Hrothgar made utterance / to him in answer : 
*' The words thou sayest / our Wisest Lord 
Hath sent to thy soul ; / nor have I heard sageher 
Any man reason / so early in life ; 
Thou art strong in might / and old in mind, 
A wise word-speaker. / Ween I it likely. 
If it be spelt / that the spear take. 
Or sword-grim battle, / the son of Hrethel, 
Illness or iron / end thine Elder, 
Shepherd of the laity, / and thou thy life havest, 

1 850 That the Sea-Geats / will have no seemlier 
King than thee / to call to them. 
Hoard-warden of heroes, / if hold thou wilt 
The rule over the meiny. / Me thy mind and heart 
Liketh longer and better, / lovely Beowulf. 
Thou hast found out a way / that to the folks shall be , 
To the Yeatish people, / and the Yard-Danes, 
Peace in common ; / and strife shall perish, 
The bitter enmity / that erst they bore ; 
There shall, while I wield / this wide kingdom, 

i860 Be mingling of treasures ; / many shall others 
Greet with gifts / across the gannet's bath ; 
Shall a ringed-ship / over the sea bring 
Loot and love-tokens. / The laity, I wot. 
To friend and to foe / are fast established. 
In all things blameless / in the ancient ways." 

64 



Then again the Earls' Guardian / gave him, 

within there, 
Halfdane's Prince, / prizes twelve, 
Bade him with that treasure / his dear tribe 
Seek in safety, / soon again come. 
Kissed then / the King well-born, 
Baron of Shieldings, / that best of thegns, 
And clasped his neck ; / coursed his tears, 
The hoary-beard. / Both things he looked for, 
Ancient and old, / but one thing rather, 
That, some time, each / might see the other, 
Proud minds in a meeting. / Was that man so dear 

to him 
That his breast's swelling / he might not bear. 
But far within his bosom, / fast in bonds of thought, 
For the dear man / a deep-hid longing 
Burned in his blood. / And Beowulf thence, 
A gold-proud warrior, / the grassy mould trod 
In his booty exulting ; / the sea-goer abode 
Her lord and owner, / which at anchor rode. 
Then was in their going / the gift of Hrothgar 
Often appraised. / That was a King 
In all things blameless, / until age bereft him 
Of joy in his might, / which oft many hath scathed. 



XXVII 

Came then to the flood / the crowd of haughty 
Bachelor-men ; / ring-nets bore they, 
Locken limb-sarks. / The land-warden espied 
Earls a-going, / as erst he had ; 
Nor did he with harmful words / from the 

headland's height 
Greet the guests, / but galloped towards them ; 
Quoth he that welcome / the Weder-People's 
Shining-clad soldiers / to their ships might fare. 
There on the sand was / the sea-worthy craft 
Laden with hero -weeds, / the ringed prow 
With mares and with money ; / the mast towered 

'65 G 



Over Hrothgar's / hoard of treasure. 

1900 He on the boat-warden / a gold y-bounden 
Sword bestowed, / so that sithence he was 
On the mead-benches / by that boon held worthier, 
A dear heirloom. / On deck he departed 
To drive deep water. / Danes' land he left. 
Then was to the mast / one of the mer-sheets, 
A sail rope-fastened ; / the sea-wood roared ; 
Nor that wave-floater / did the wind over the 

waters 
Hinder from sailing ; / the sea-goer started, 
Floated, foamy-necked, / forth over the waves, 

1 910 The banded stem / over brimming streams, 
Till they Geatish cHffs / might get in sight. 
Kenned nesses ; / the keel pushed up 
Driven by the breeze, / on the beach she stood. 
Rapidly by the holm / was the hythe-warden ready, 
He who ever and long / for the lovely men. 
Fain by the flood, /afar had gazed ; 
He bound to the sand / the broad-bosomed ship 
With anchor-bonds fast, / lest the force of the 

waves 
That winsome wood / might wrench away. 

1 920 Bade he then upwards bear / the athehngs' treasure, 
Fretted and fashioned gold ; / nor had they far 

thence 
To go seeking / the giver of jewels, 
Higelac Hrethling, / where at home he dwelt, 
Himself with his subjects / the sea-wall near. 
The building was beautiful, / its baron a proud 

King, 
High were the halls ; / Hygd was very young. 
Wise, well-thriven, / though winters few 
Locked in the burgh / had she abode, 
Haereth's daughter ; / was she not humble however, 

1930 Nor too niggard of gifts / to the Geatish people. 
Of massy treasure. 

Moodiness Thrytho shewed. 
Valiant folk-queen, / fearsome violence ; 
Was none who durst, / doughty, to venture 

66 



Of her own household, / her husband save, 
Her upon by day / with his eyes to stare ; 
But on ropes of death / for a doom might he reckon 
Hand-i-woven ; / hastily then was 
After his seizure / the sword allotted him. 
That sharply, sheerly, / should life shut, 
1940 Make clear his killing. / Not so is the queenly 
custom 
For a woman to work, / though wonder-fair she be, 
That she, a Peace- Weaver, / the life pursue, 
In lying malice, / of a man beloved. 
Howbeit, that did he hinder, / Hemming's kinsman. 

Ale-drinkers / otherwise said. 
That she of folk-damage / fashioned less, 
Of feud and hatred, / since first she was 
Given, gold-decked, / to the gallant youth. 
Dear of ancestry, / when she Offa's floor 

1950 Over the fallow flood / by her father's counsel 
Sailing sought : / there she, si thence, well 
On the royal seat, / renowned for goodness, 
The life allotted her / lived and enjoyed, 
Held high love / for the Heroes' Prince, 
Who of all mankind, / in my story, 
Was seemliest, / two seas between. 
Of every-kind. / Wherefore Offa was. 
In spending and striving / a spear-keen man, 
Widely worshipped ; / in wisdom held he 

i960 His own homestead. / From him Eomaer sprang 
For the help of heroes, / Hemming's kinsman, 
Grandson of Garmund, / great in battle. 

XXVIII 

Bewent him then the hardy one / with his handful 
Himself over the sand / the sea-field treading. 
Wide water-marks ; / the world-candle shone. 
The sun, south-rising ; / they shaped their way. 
With force they went / where the Fence of Earls, 
The bane of Ongentheow, / his burgh within, 

67 



Their young and good / War-King (they guessed) 

1970 Rings was dealing. / Higelac was 

Of Beowulf's travelling / quickly told, 

That within those walls / the warriors' champion, 

His linden-comrade / alive was come, 

Hale from the battle-play / to the house going. 

Rapidly was made ready, /as the rich one bade, 

For the footing guests / the floor within. 

Sate then by his side / he who was saved from the 

strife, 
Kinsman by kinsman, / when the King of men 
Speaking aloud / his liegeman greeted 

1980 In mighty words. / With mead-draughts moved 
Over that hall-floor / Haereth's daughter ; 
She loved the laity, / Kquor-bowls bare 
To the hands of the heroes. / Higelac began 
His housemate / in the high hall 
To question kindly ; / knowledge he craved, 
What the Water-Geats' / wanderings were. 
** What came to you on your crossing, / kinsman 

Beowulf, 
When thou, in a moment, / wert minded afar 
Strife to seek, / over salt water, 

1 990 Hand-play in Heorot ? / And hast thou Hrothgar's 
Wide-famed woe / one whit made better. 
That mighty Prince. / I with painful mind 
In sorrow-waves seethed, / that sailing mistrusted 
Of a man beloved. / Long time I prayed thee 
Never to meet / that murder-guest 
But to leave the South-Danes' / selves to settle 
Their grievance with Grendel. / To God I say 

thanks 
That I may see thee / safe and sound.'' 
Beowulf answered, Ecgtheow's boy : 

2000 *' It is no secret, / Sovran Higelac, 

Among many men, / our mighty meeting. 
What a bout of gripping / to Grendel and me 
Came on that field / where he with countless 
Sorrows had troubled / the Triumph-Shieldings, 
Everlasting anguish : / All of it I avenged, 

68 



So cannot boast / any cousin of Grendel 

In all the earth, / of that morning-uproar. 

Not he that longest liveth / of the loathly clan, 

Fenced in his fens. /There first I came 

To that Ring-Hall, / Hrothgar greeting ; 

Straightway for me the mighty / man of Halfdane, 

Whenas the mind / of me he knew, 

By the son of himself / a seat appointed. 

The laity laughed ; / nor in all my life saw I 

Under heaven's vault, / among sitters in hall, 

More joy in their mead. / At times the mighty 

Queen, 
Peace-maker among peoples, / paced the floor, 
Boldened the young boys ; / often a bended ring she 
Bestowed on a stalwart / ere she stepped to her 

stool. 
At times before the doughty / the daughter of 

Hrothgar 
To the earls at each end / the ale-cup bare, 
* Freawaru ' then I, / by the floor-sitters. 
Heard her named, / as the nail-studded treasure she 
Bent to the brave. / Betrothed is she. 
Young, gold-embroidered, / to the glad son of Froda. 
A fair thing has it seemed / to the Friend of 

Shieldings, 
Shepherd of his Realm, / and a good rede he 

counteth it. 
That he by this woman / a wealth of feuds 
And slaughter may settle. / Not seldom but often, 
When a Lord is fallen, / a Httle while only 
Is the death-spear banished, / though the bride be 

doughty. 
This, then, may displease / the Prince of 

Heathobeards 
And every thegn / among that people 
When he with that femrae / upon the floor goeth, 
That on a well-born Dane / his warriors wait ; 
One on whom gleameth / their grandsires' leavings 
Hard and ring-mailed, / the Heathobeards' treasure; 
While they those weapons / might be wielding, 

69 



[XXX] 

Till they led astray / to the linden-play 
2040 Their loved comrades, / and their own lives. 

Then says over his beer, / as the booty he sees, 

An old ash-warrior / who it all remembers, 

The spear-murder of men, / (and his mind is 

grim)— 
He beginneth gloomily / the young champion's 
Courage to spy out, / by the thoughts of his spirit, 
War-anger to kindle, / and this word quoth : 
* Dost thou, my son, / the sword distinguish, 
Which thy father / to the fight bare. 
Trapped in his helmet, / the hindmost time, 
2050 His dear iron, / when the Danes slew him ; 

And won the slaughter-field, / when Withergyld 

lay there, 
And the fighters were fallen, / the fierce Shieldings ? 
Now, here, those slayers* / son, or such-hke, 
Exulting in his finery / over the floor goeth. 
Of the treason boasteth, / and the treasure beareth 
Which rightly had passed / into thy possession/ 
Moveth he him so and remindeth him, / many a 

time. 
With savage words, / till the season cometh 
And the femme's thegn / for his father's deeds, 
2060 When the blade has bitten him / in blood sleepeth, 
Endeth his days ; / and the other from thence 
Loseth himself alive, / for that land is well-known 

to him. 
Then bin broken / on both sides 
The oaths earls swore, / when in Ingeld 
Welle th up deadly loathing, / and his love of his 

wife 
Under waves of care / waxeth cooler. 
So I on the Heathobeards' / honesty count not, 
On their share in the Peace / with the simple 

Danes, 
Or fastness in friendship. 

Henceforth shall I speak 

70 



20 70 Again about Grendel, / till thou get full 
knowledge, 
Offerer of treasures, / how it turned at the end, 
That hand-fight of heroes. / After heaven's gem 
Glided below the ground, / that guest angrily 

came, 
An awful evening-rage, / us to visit. 
Where safe and sound / we sate in the hall. 
There upon Hondscio / a host descended. 
His life forfeit by fate ; / the first he fell. 
A girded champion ; / to him Grendel was. 
To our mighty man / a mouth of murder, 

2080 Of that swain beloved / the limbs he swallowed. 
None the earlier out again, / idle-handed. 
That bloody- toothed bane, / of butchery mindful, 
From the gold-hall / would be going ; 
But, bold in his might, / of me made trial, 
Grappled me greedy-handed. / His glove was 

hanging 
Wide and wondrous, / with woven-bands fastened ; 
It was by cunning / all contrived 
With devils' craft / and dragons' pelts. 
He there, inside it, / me unsinning, 

2090 That dire deed-worker, / would have done away, 
One among many ; / that might not be 
When I in ire / upright arose. 
Too long is it to reckon / how I to that land-scather 
For each of his evils / offered hand-payment ; 
There I, my Prince, / made thy people 
Worshipful by my work. / Away he escaped, 
A little while / life's joys he brooked ; 
But his right arm / the road pointed. 
His hand in Heorot ; / and he, hapless, thence, 

2100 Mournfully minded, / to the mere's floor fell. 
Me for that fight / the Friend of Shieldings 
With fashioned gold / in full rewarded, 
With many treasures, / when morning came, 
And we to the banquet / had bent us down. 
Then was song and glee. / The greybeard Shielding 
Asking us many things, / old tales remembered ; 

71 



At times a hero / the happy harp, 

The joy-wood swept, / while a song he uttered, 

True and tragic ; / at times a strange tale 

21 lo Read us aright / the roomy-hearted King ; 
Awhile after began, / by age bounden, 
A grizzled warrior / his youth to bewail, 
His battle-strength ; / his breast in him swelled 
As he, old in winters, / all that remembered. 
So we inside there / all the day long 
Tasted of pleasure, / until night returned 
Again to the earth. / Thereafter was rapidly 
Girt for vengeance / Grendel's mother ; 
Set her forth sorrowful ; / her son death had 
taken, 

2120 The Weders' war-hate. / A wife unlovely, 
Her bairn she avenged ; / a brave man she 

vanquished 
Unafraid ; / there from Aeschere, 
A learned elder, / Hfe went out. 
Neither might they, / when morning came, 
Him, death-weary, / the Danish people 
Burn with brands, / nor on the bale-fire lay 
Their loved kinsman ; / his corpse she bare off 
In fiendish fingers / under the mountain-flood • 
That was for Hrothgar / harshest of the sorrows 

2130 Which on that Folk-Lord / long time had fallen. 
Then that lord of me, / by thine own Hfe, 
Wistfully besought / that in the swirling waters 
I should act with earlship, / offer life up, 
Merit glory ; / meed he promised me, 
I then of those wells / — -it is widely known — 
The grim and griesly / guardian found. 
There for us two awhile was / a hand-encounter ; 
The pool heaved with blood, / and I the head 

carved off. 
In that ^row;z^-mansion, / of Grendel's mother, 

2140 With a huge sword ; / not softly thence 

Did I fetch me alive ; / I was not fated as yet ; 
But the Guardian of Earls / afterwards gave me 
A heap of treasures, / Halfdane's son. 

72 



XXXI 

So the people's King / by custom lived ; 

In no way my fee / foregone had I, 

Tribute for might, / but treasures he gave me, 

Halfdane's son, / as myself I chose, 

Which I, bravest of Kings, / will bring to thee, 

Will gladly offer. / Ever from thee do all 

Favours fall ; / but few have I 

Of high kinsmen / save, Higelac, thee/* 

Bade he then bear in / the Boar, the head-crest, 

The battle-steep helmet, / hoary byrny. 

War-sword splendid ; / then spake a word : 

** To me this harness / Hrothgar offered, 

Sagest of Princes, / and in certain words bade 

That I first should thee / of his friendship tell ; 

Quoth he, that held them / Heorogar the King, 

Lord of Shieldings, / a long while ; 

Nor yet to his own son / would he assign, 

To lusty Heoroweard, / loyal though he were to 

him. 
That breast-armour. / Use it all well.*' 
Heard I that this finery / four horses. 
All alike, / did follow after, 
Apple-yellow ; / he yielded him the honour 
Of horses and treasures. / So should a tribesman do, 
Never envy-nets / for others weave. 
Nor by dark-hid craft /with death encompass 
His hand-companions. / To Higelac was, 
Hardy in fight, / his nephew most faithful, 
And each was mindful / of the other's good. 
Heard I, that he the necklace / on Hygd bestowed, 
That work of wander / which Wealhtheow had 

given him, 
A prince's daughter; / and three palfreys therewith 
Slim, bright-saddled ; / since then she went. 
After his bounty, / with breast adorned. 
So was emboldened / Ecgtheow's boy, 
A groom war-famed, / by his good deeds ; 
He dwelt as he deemed, / never, drunken, slew 

73 



2 1 80 His hearth-fellows ; / nor was he harsh in spirit, 
But among man-kind / with most of craft 
The gift firm-set / which God had sent him 
Held, battle-hardy. / Humbled was he long, 
For the sons of the Geats / no good of him said. 
Nor, on the mead-bench, / of mickle worth 
The captains of warriors / would account him ; 
Shrewdly they reckoned / that slack he was, 
An athefing ungallant. / Atonement came 
To the man triumphant / for all his troubles* 

2190 Then the Fence of Earls / bade fetch him in. 
The King battle-haughty, / Hrethel's heirloom 
Gay with gold ; / among the Geats was not then 
A wealthier treasure / in the way of swords ; 
This he in Beowulf's / bosom laid. 
And spent upon him / seven thousands, 
A bower and a throne. / To both of them was 
In that country / land bequeathed. 
Home and ownership ; / to the other one, rather. 
The broad realm ; / wherefore the better man was 
he there. 



2200 After that it happened, / in other days. 

In the fury of hosts, / when Higelac was fallen, 
And on Heardred / the hewing swords 
Through the board of his shield / balefully 

shattered. 
When sought him out / mid his soldier-people 
Bold wolves of battle, / Warrior-Scylfings, 
Who forcefully harried / Hereric's nephew ; — 
Then to Beowulf / the broad realm 
Came under his hand. / He held it aright 
Fifty winters / (then was he a white-haired King, 

2210 An old land-warden), / until one began 

In darkness of night, / a dragon, to lord it ; 
Which in a high law / lay over a hoard, 
A steep stone-barrow ; / and steps thereunder. 
Unknown to the world. / Within there went 

74 



Some enemy, / v)ho in envy seized 
The heathenish hoard ; / his hand took forth 
A jewelled bowl^ j nor did he bring it again, 
But he ensnared / the sleeping warden 
By thievish craft ; / so the King founds 
2230 The brave one of the folk, / that he was belching 
with fury. 



XXXII 

Never of a purpose / the power of the Worm's 

hoard 
Sought he^ for his own sake, / who sorely scathed 

himself ; 
But in straitest need, / the slave of some one 
Of the sons of heroes, / hate-swinges fled, 
Finding no home^ / and therein fell, 
A soul sin-busied. / Soon it hetided 
Th3t there ^ over the guest, / griesly terror came ; 
Whether in his wretchedness, /........ 

....../.......... 

2230 / While on him tht fear pressed 

The jewel-cup he saw. j Of such were there many 

In that earth-house, / of ancient riches, 

Such as in olden days / any one of men, 

(The whole heritage / of an honoured kindred) 

Heedful in thought, / there had hidden. 

Dearest treasures. / All of them death had taken 

In earlier times, / and the only one now 

Of the people's lords, / he who longest abode 

there. 
Waxed friend-sorry, / wished to linger, 

2240 That he a little spell / the long-kept riches 
Might enjoy. / The mound all in readiness 
Stood on the earth / near the streams of ocean. 
New-wrought on the ness, / narrow-closed and 

fast ; 
Bare he then inside / of those earls' bounties, 

75 



That lord of rings, / a heavy load, 

Of fashioned gold, / and few words quoth : 

** Hold thou now, earth, / now heroes may not, 

What Earls have owned. / What ! of old out of thee 

Gallants got them ; / grim death has taken, 

2250 Massacre fierce, / the men, each and all 

Of my people, / who have passed from this life ; 
They had seen the hall's bliss. / None have I who 

beareth sword. 
Or polisheth / the plated bowl, 
The drinking-cup dear ; / the doughty are 

elsewhere scattered. 
From the hard helmet / harnessed with gold 
Its plates shall slip ; / the polishers slumber 
Who the battle-masks / were wont to burnish ; 
And so the army-coat / that in conflict endured, 
When boards were broken, / the bite of iron, 

2260 Moulders with its master ; / nor may the mailed 
byrny 
With the war-chief / widely journey, 
Atfhand by the heroes. / In the harp is no joy, 
No game of the glee-beam ; / no good hawk 
O'er the house swingeth, / nor any swift horse 
In the stone-court stampeth. / For stem death 
All of the folk-Hfe / forth has exiled." 
Thus, sad of mood, / his sorrows he mourned. 
One, after them all ; / unblithe he wept. 
Daily and nightly, / until death's tide 

2270 Felt at his heart. 

The hoard of joy he found, 
That old striker in twilight, / standing open, 
He who, burning, / the barrows seeketh, 
A naked fear-dragon, / nightly flieth 
Driven by fire ; / him the field-dwellers 
Sorely dread, j Still he seeketh 
A hoard in the ground / where he heathen gold 
Watcheth, old in winters : / nor is he a whit the 

wealthier. 
So the people's threatener, / three hundred winters 
Held in the earth / such a hoard-house, 

76 



22 8o Of endless strength, / until angered him one 
Man in his mind ; / to his master bare 
The plated bowl, / for a peace-pact begged 
The lord of him. / Then was the hoard looted, 
Borne off its bracelets ; / as a boon 'twas granted 
To the friendless man. / His master saw 
The former work of the folk, / for the first time. 
When the Worm awoke, / was war renewed ; 
He snuffed then over the stones, / stark-hearted 

he found 
Footprints of a foe, / who too far had stepped, 

2290 Crafty in darkness, / the dragon's head near. 
So may one unfated / easily escape 
Woe and exile, / who the Wielder's 
Friendship holdeth. / The hoard-warden sought 
Greedily over the ground, / that groom he would find 
Who to him in his slumber / sorrow had brought ; 
Hot and harsh-minded / the hill he oft hunted 
All round about ; / nor was any man there 
Upon that waste, / Yet for war he was joyful, 
For battle-work ; / at whiles to the barrow he 
turned, 

2300 The jewel-cup sought ; / but soon he found 

That some one of men / had searched out the gold, 

That high treasure. / The hoard-warden abode 

111 at ease, / until evening came ; 

Was belching then / the barrow's keeper, 

Would the foul foe / with flame repurchase 

His drinking-cup dear. / Then was day forth 

driven. 
As the Worm could wish ; / Nor within his walls 

for long 
Would he abide, / but with bale-fire went. 
Forth on his flame. / At the first it affrighted 

2310 The country folk, /even as quickly it was 

And bloodily ended / by their Bounty-Giver. 

xxxni 

Then the enemy began / to spit forth embers. 
To bum the bright houses ; / a blazing light shone 

77 



Awful to all men ; / nor aught there alive 

That loathly lift-flier / would he leave. 

Was the Worm's warfare / widely seen, 

The narrow-foe's fury / near and far, 

How a warring punisher / the Geatish people 

Was hating and humbling. / To the hoard again 

he shot, 
2320 To his dark domain, / ere dawn of day • 
He had the folk of the land / with fire 

encompassed. 
With burning and branding ; / in his barrow he 

trusted. 
In his war and his wall ; / that weening bewrayed 

him. 
Then was the tale of terror / told to Beowulf 
Swiftly and in sooth, / how himself his home 
Best of buildings / in burning waves melted. 
The gift-stool of the Geats. / That to the gallant 

one was 
Hurtful at heart, / heaviest of mind-sorrows ; 
Weened the wise one / that the Wielder he, 
2330 Against the ancient Law, / the Lord Eternal 
Had bitterly angered ; / his breast welled in 

him 
With darkest cares, / as his custom was not. 
Had the fire-dragon / the people's fastness 
Which on earth they owned, / by the ocean's edge, 
With coals consumed ; / wherefore the King of 

Battle, 
The Weders' Prince / planned a vengeance. 
Bade he then work him / (the Warriors' Buckler) 
All of iron / (the Lord of Earls) 
A wondrous war-shield ; / wist he well 
2340 That hewn-wood to him / no help might furnish. 
Fuel against flame. / Must he of his fleeting days, 
An atheling ever-good, / the end await. 
Of Hfe in the world, / and the Worm to boot. 
Though he the hoarded wealth / had held for 

long. 
Too proud was then / the Prince of Rings 

78 



That he the wide-flier / with warriors should 

seek, 
With a strong host ; / nor for himself the struggle 

dreaded, 
Nor the Worm's warring / a whit esteemed, 
His might and menace;/ for that many times, of 

old, 
Venturing in strait places / by strife he had 

vanquished. 
In heat of battle, / since he Hrothgar's 
Hall had cleansed, / a happy conqueror, 
And in fight had outgripped / GrendeFs folk, 
That loathly kindred. 

Nor the least was that 
Of hand-encounters, / where Higelac they killed, 
When the Geats' ruler / in the race of battle, 
Friend of his folk / in Frisian land. 
Son of Hrethel, / the sword-drink swallowed, 
Beaten down by the blade ; / therefrom Beowulf 

came 
By his own craft, / used his sea-cunning ; 
He had on his arm, / he only, thirty 
Weapons of war, / when to the water he went. 
Never did the Hetv/are / need to exult 
In their fighting on foot, / who forward against 

him 
Linden-shields bare ; / little of them came back 
From that battle-wolf, / to behold their homes. 
Overswam then the sea's width / the son of 

Ecgtheow, 
In poverty, alone, / again to his people. 
There Hygd offered him / hoard and kingdom, 
Bracelets and throne ; / in the boy she trusted not. 
That he against strange folk / the stool of his 

fathers 
Would know how to hold, / and Higelac killed. 
None the sooner the mourners / might obtain 
From that atheling, / on any terms. 
That he would Heardred's / lord become. 
Or that kingdom / choose to hold ; 

79 



However he kept him with the folk / in friendly 

counsel, 
Graciously, with honour, / until the lad older grew. 
The Weder-Geats ruled. / Him wretched exiles 

2380 Sought over the sea, / the sons of Ohthere ; 

Had they held out against / the Helm of Scylfings, 

The seemliest / of the sea-kings 

Who in Swio-rice / riches scattered, 

A mighty lord. / His measure that marked ; 

He there, destitute, / his death-wound won 

By swingeing sword, / the son of Higelac. 

And thereafter bewent him / Ongentheow's bairn 

His home to behold, / when Heardred lay dead, 

He let Beowulf keep / the kingly seat, 

2390 Govern the Geats. / That was a good king. 



XXXIV 

He was minded to have payment / for that Prince's 

murder 
In after days ; / To Eadgils he was 
A friend in his sorrows, / with his folk he 

supported, 
Over the wide sea, / the son of Ohthere, 
With warriors and weapons. / He wreaked 

vengeance thereafter 
Coldly marching, / that King of life bereft. 
So from every enemy / escape he did, 
From savage onslaughts, / the son of Ecgtheow, 
From deeds of daring, / until that same day 
2400 When he with that Worm / wager must. 

Went then, one of twelve, / with anger swelling. 
The Duke of Geats / the dragon to seek : 
He had then found out / whence the feud arose. 
The curse on the captains ; / into his keeping was 

come 
The famous treasure-cup / from the finder's hand. 
He was in that troop / the thirteenth man. 
Who of that battle / beginning had made ; 

80 



A slave in sorrow / must he show forthwith 
Where the way was. / Unwilling went he 
To where was one / earth-house he wist, 
Hollowed under ground / the holm-waves near, 
The warring floods, / that was filled within 
With wrought- work and wire -work. / A warden 

unkindly, 
A greedy war- wolf / the gold-treasures held, 
An old one under the earth ; / 'twas no easy bargain 
For any man / to enter in. 

Sate then on the headland / the hardy War-King, 
While hail he bade / his hearth-companions. 
The Gold-Friend of Geats. / Full of gloom was his 

mind, 
Wavering, death-wiUing ; / the Wyrd was very 

near 
Which that greybeard / was to greet. 
To seek his soul's hoard, /to scatter asunder 
Life from limbs ; / not for long then was 
That atheling's being / bound in his flesh. 
Beowulf made utterance, / Ecgtheow's son : 
'^ Often in youth have I borne me / out from the 

battle-race. 
In hours of onset ; / all of that I remember. 
I had seven winters / when the Wielder of Treasures , 
Friend and Lord of the Folk, / from my father 

took me ; 
Held me and had me / Hrethel the King, 
Gave me fee and feast, / of our friendship was 

mindful ; 
Nor was I in his life to him / a whit less likely 
A brave in his burgh / than any of his boys, 
Herebeald or Haethcyn, / or Higelac mine own. 
Was for the eldest / unbefittingly 
By a kinsman's deed / his death-bed strewn,,..^ 
When him Haethcyn / and his horned bow, 
His friend and lord / by an arrow felled, 
Missed the mark / and his mate shot dead. 
One brother the other, / with bloody shaft. 
'Twas a feud beyond fee, / a felonish sinning, 

8i G 



Mind-wearying and heart ; / must howsoever 
That lord unavenged / from life depart. 
So mournful is it / for an aged man 
To bide alive / while his bairn rideth 
Young on the gallows ; / then a glee may he sing, 
A sorry song, / when his son hangeth, 
A raven's comfort, / and to help him he cannot, 
In oldest age, / aught devise. 
2450 Always is he reminded, / every morning. 

Of his offspring gone elsewhere ; / nor of another 

careth he 
To abide the birth, / his burgh within, 
For a further heir / when the former hath 
By death's constraint / of his deeds made proof. 
Sore at heart he seeth / in his son's bower 
The wine-hall a waste, / for winds to rest in it. 
Of revels bereft ; / the riders are sleeping, 
The heroes in shadow ; / nor is sound there of 

harping, 
Nor gaming in the yards / as of yore there were. 



XXXV 

2460 Wendeth he then to his chamber, / a chant of 

sorrow waileth, 
One man for another ; / seem to him all too roomy 
The fields and the folk-stead. / So the Fence of 

Weders 
For Herebeald / with sorrow of heart 
Melted away ; / no whit he might 
Upon the murderer / mend the feud ; 
None the sooner that soldier / might he shame 
By deeds of hatred, / though dear to him he was 

not. 
Then for that sorrow, / the sore that had wounded 

him, 
Man's cheer he gave up. / God's light chose ; 
2470 To his children he willed, / as doth a wealthy 

man, 

Sz 



Land and lordship, / when this life he left. 
Then was sin and strife / among Swedes and Gteats, 
Over the wide water, / wrath in common, 
Hard troop-hatred, / after Hrethel was dead. 
And to them Ongentheow's / offspring were 
Proud and warlike ; / peace they would not 
Hold, across the water, / but against Hreosna 

Hill 
Evil inroads / often planned. 
Which mates and kin / of mine avenged, 
Feuds and felonies, / (so the fame of it went) 
Though one of them / with his own life paid, 
A hard bargain ; / for Haethcyn was, 
For the Geats' Warden, / war-death fated. 
Then at break of day / one man his brother 
By the sword's edge, / on his slayer avenged, 
When Ongentheow / with Eofor met ; 
His battle-helm glided asunder, / the grey-haired 

Scylfing 
Fell, murder-p3\t ; / a hand remembered 
Feuds enough, / nor failed at the death-stroke. 

Him then, for the gold j which he had given me 

I repaid in war, / as it was awarded to me, 

With lightning sword ; / land he gave me, 

Ownership of earth. / Was not any need 

That he of the Yifthas, / or of the Yard-Danes, 

Or in Swio-rice, / should be seeking 

A weaker war-wolf, / or pay him his worth ; 

Ever for him with the foot-men / before would I 

go, 
Alone in the van, / and so always shall I 
Seek to fight, / while this sword endureth, 
Which early and late / hath often served me, 
Since I in my doughtiness / was Dayraven's 
Hand-slayer, / the Hugas* champion's. 
Never could he the finery / to the Frisian King, 
The breast-adornments / bring again ; 
But in strife was struck down / the standard's 

keeper, 

83 



An atheling brave ; / nor was the blade his ending, 
But the battle-grip / his heart's beating, 
His bone-house brake. / Now shall the bill's edge, 
Hand and hard-sword, / for the hoard contest." 
2510 Beowulf made utterance, / boasting words spake, 
For the last time : / ** I launched me on many 
Wars in my youth ; / yet again will I, 
An old folk-shepherd, / seek the fight, 
Do mighty deeds, / if me the monster 
From his earth-house / come out to meet.** 
Greeted he then / the grooms each one, 
Haughty helm-bearers, / a hindmost time. 
His sweet companions : / '* A sword would I not 

bear. 
Nor weapon against the Worm, / if I wist how 
2520 With that enemy / else I might 

Come to grips, boast-yelling, / as of yore with 

Grendel I did ; 
But here on a hate-fire / hot I reckon. 
And breathing of venom ; / wherefore I bear on 

me 
Board and byrny. / Nor will I from the barrow's 

warden 
Flee away / one foot's measure. 
But to us shall it be at the wall / as Wyrd shall 

appoint for us, 
The measure of every man. / I am in mind 

emboldened. 
So that I forgo boasting / before that battle-flier. 
Await ye on the barrow, / byrnies wearing, 
2530 Men in armour, / which may the better 
After the duel / endure his wounds. 
Of us twain. / Nor is it your trial. 
Nor any man's, / save mine only. 
That he with the monster / measure his strength, 
Match his earlship. / I by my might shall 
Gain the gold, / or the battle gather. 
Cruel life-bane, / the lord of you." 
Stood up then with his shield / the stalwart 

champion, 

84 



Hardy under his helm, / his harness bare 

2540 Under the stone-cliffs, / in the strength he trusted 
Of a single man ; / such is not the manner of 

cowards. 
Saw he then in the wall, / (he who in a wealth 
Of battles had vanquished, / blest with valour, 
Roaring fights, / in the rush of foot-men) 
A stone-arch standing, / a stream out thence 
Breaking from the barrow ; / were that burn's 

eddies 
Hot with hate-fire ; / nor near the hoard might he 
Unburned / for any time 
Its depths endure, / for the dragon's flame. 

2550 Let then from his breast, / so he boiled with anger, 
The Weder-Geats' Prince / pass out a word ; 
Stark-hearted he stormed ; / under the hoary 

stone, 
Echoing battle-bright, / brake his voice ; 
Hatred was kindled, / the hoard-warden knew 
The speech of man, / nor was there space any more 
To bid for peace. / Burst forth first 
The breath of the ogre / out of the stone, 
Hot sweat of battle. / Shook the ground. 
The brave under the barrow / his round-board 
swung 

2560 Against the griesly guest, / the Geatish lord ; 
Then the ring-twister's / heart was fain 
A duel to seek. / His sword now had drawn 
The excellent War-King, / bequeathed from of old, 
Unslow of edge ; / to each of them was. 
Murder-minded, / menace from the other. 
Stiff -minded stood / behind his steep shield 
The King of Friends, / as coiled the Worm 
Swiftly together ; / in his trappings he waited. 
Came then the burning one, / bowed and creeping, 

^570 Speeding to his doom. / The shield well defended 
Life and limb, / a lesser while 
For the mighty lord, / than he might look for 
So he at that point, / in the prime of the day, 
Was to win / (as Wyrd had not written for him) 

85, 



The honour of the fight. / His hand upraised 
The Geatish lord, / the griesly-hued one struck 
With Ing's heirloom, / but its edge fell back, 
Brown from the bone, / bit less keenly 
Than its Nation-King / had need of it, 
2580 Busily beset. / Then was the barrow's warden, 
After that fierce stroke, / stirred to fury, 
And spewed slaying fire ; / sprang forth afar 
Its battle -gleams. / Boasted not of triumph 
The Gold-Friend of Geats ; / his good sword had 

failed. 
Naked in the fight, / as never should 
Excellent iron. / Nor was that an easy journey 
When the champion, / the child of Ecgtheow, 
Had to forsake / the fields of earth. 
Must, undesiring, / make his dwelling 
2590 Elsewhere, / as must every man 

Leave his loan of days. / Nor was it long then ere 

Either champion / charged againr 

Boldened him the barrow-warden, / his breast 

swelled with breath, 
Now anew ; / he was narrowly beset, 
Fenced in fire, / who the folk had ruled. 
No wise for him in their host /his hand-companions, 
Athelings' stock, / stood around 
In their battle-worth, / but to the wood they 

bound them. 
To save their lives. / In one alone swelled 
a 600 His soul with care ; / kinship never may 

Any thing unbind, / in one who well thinketh. 



XXXVI 

Wiglaf was he named, / Weohstan's son, 
A loved linden-warrior, / a lord of Scylfings, 
Sib to Aelfhere ; / he saw his master 
Under the shutten helmet / suffering heat ; 
He minded him then of the honour / which he of 
old had given him, 

86 



The wealthy township / of the Waegmundings, 
And folk-rights all, / as his father had owned 

them ; 
Nor might he hold back then, / his hand the shield 

seized, 
2610 Yellow linden, / his yore-sword he drew. 

That was, for all men, / Eanmund's heirloom, 
Ohthere's son's, / whom in the slaughter, 
A friendless wanderer, / Weohstan finished 
With the blade's edge, / and from his fellows bare off 
The brown-hued helm, / the ringed bymy. 
The old sword, Eotenish, / which Onela had given 

him ; 
His brother-clansman's / battle clothing. 
Fit for service. / Nor about the feud spake he 
Though he his brother's / bairn had murdered. 
2620 He wore those treasures / many winters. 

Blade and bymy, / until his own boy might 

Earlship achieve, / as erst his father ; 

He gave him then among the Geats / his gear of 

battle 
All, unnumbered, / when out from life he went, 
Old, forth-faring. / This w^as the first time 
For the young champion / that he the charge of 

battle 
With his sovran lord / had to suflfer ; 
Nor melted his courage, /nor was his kinsman's 

heirloom 
Weak at warfare ; / that the Worm found out 
2630 When they together / once had gone. 
Wiglaf uttered / words fit and many. 
Said to his comrades / (full of care was his soul) 
'' Of that time I am mindful, / when the mead we 

tasted. 
When we made a vow / to the master of us 
In the beer-hall, / who these bracelets gave us, 
That we for our weapons / would repay him, 
If to him this kind / of peril came, 
For helmets and hard swords. / Nay, he us from 

the host did choose 

87 



For this journey, / of his own judgement, 
2640 Reminded us of glory, / and to me these treasures 

gave. 
Because he accounted us / cunning spearmen, 
Lusty helm-bearers ; / though our lord for us 
This work of valour / wished alone 
To shape and finish, / the Folk's Shepherd, 
For that he most among men / of mastery hath 

wrought. 
Of desperate deeds. / Now is the day come 
That our lord and master / the main-strength 

needeth 
Of gallant warriors. / Let us go to. 
And help our hero, / while this heat endureth, 
2650 Flame-terror grim. / God wot of me, 

That to me it is much liefer / that my live body 

With my gold-giver's / the flame should grasp. 

Nor meseems it becoming / that we bear our shields 

Back to our folk, / save first we may 

Fell this foe, / defend the life 

Of the Weders' Prince. / Well do I know 

That his ancient worth is not such / that he only 

should 
Of the Geatish soldiery / suffer sorrow, 
Sink in the strife ; / for us twain shall be sword 

and helm, 
2660 Byrny and covered-shield, / for both in common," 
Waded he then through that blood-reek, / his 

war-head bore 
His friend to comfort, / and few words quoth : 
*' Dearest Beowulf, / do all things well. 
Even as thou in thy youth-time / of yore didst say 
That thou wouldst not let, / from thyself living 
Glory dwindle ; / now must thou, great in thy 

deeds, 
AtheHng one-minded, / with all thy might 
Save thy life ; / and I support thee.'' 
After those words / the Worm irefuUy came 
2670 An evil guest of enmity, / another time, 

With fire-waves flashing, / his foes to seek, 

88 



Those loathed men. / In lapping-fire was burned 
Board with boss ; / his byrny might not 
To the young spearman / yield any succour ; 
But the young man / under his master's shield 
Went eagerly on, / when his own was 
Wasted by fire. / Then again the War-King 
Was mindful of his fame, / by main-strength he 

smote 
With his hostile blade, / so that on the head it beat, 
2680 Forced by his fury ; / in flinders Nailing 
Swooned in the battle, / Beowulf's sword, 
Hoary and grey. / 'Twas not granted to him 
That any edge / of iron might 
Help in the struggle ; / was that hand too strong, 
Which every sword, / as I have heard say, 
Overbore with its stroke, / when to the strife he bare 
A wondrous-hard weapon ; / nor was he a whit the 

better. 
Then the tribe's scather /a third time. 
The fearsome fire-dragon / his feud remembered, 
2690 Rushed on that gallant one, / when room he gave 

him. 
Hot, battle-grim, / all his neck he grasped 
In bitter tooth-bones ; / he bloodied was 
With his soul's gore ; / that sweat in streams 

gushed. 



XXXVII 

Then I heard that in the need / of the Nation's 

King 
That earl unceasing / excellence shewed, 
Craft and keenness, / as his kind was ; 
Nor heeded he that head / (but the hand was 

burned 
Of that masterful man, / when his mate he helped). 
For he that dread guest / downwards a little struck, 
2700 A soldier in armour, / so that the sword dived in. 
Brightly fashioned, / and the fire began 

89 . 



/ 

To slacken straightway. / Then himself the King 

again 
Conquered his wits, / the killing-knife drew, 
Bitter and battle-sharp, / which on his byrny he 

wore ; 
The Weders' Helm wrote into / the Worm's 

middle. 
Their foe they felled, / their valour finished him, 
And both of those twain / had broken him up, 
Kinsmen-athelings ; / so should every man be, 
A thegn in peril. / For the Prince that was 
2710 The utmost triumph-day / of his own deeds, 

Of his work in the world. / Then the wound began, 
Which upon him the earth-dragon / earlier had 

wrought. 
To sweal and to swell ; / soon he found out 
That through his breast / a baleful hurt was welling, 
Poison from within. / Went then the atheling 
Until he by the wall / in wisdom of mind 
Sate on a seat ; / he saw the giants' work, 
How that stone-arches / on staples fast 
The everlasting earth-hall / inwardly held. 
2720 Him then with his hands, / horrid with blood. 

His famous Prince, / that thegn faithful beyond 

measure, 
His friend and lord / did lave in water. 
Spent with battle, / and unspanned his helm. 
Beowulf made utterance ; / of his bane he spake, 
Of his wound death-piteous ; / wist he readily 
That he his day-span / had spent at length 
Of earthly joy ; / then was all scattered 
The tale of his days, / death very nigh : — 
*' Now I to a son of mine / would seek to give 
273c My weeds of war, / were it so awarded me 
That any heir should / after me come, 
Begotten of my body. / This burgh have I held 
Through fifty winters ; / nor M-as there a 

Folk-King 
Who me with his war-friends / to welcome dared, 
To harass me with terrors. / At home I attended 

90 



What time should bring me, / treated well mine 

own, 
Nor sought armed quarrels, / nor swore me many 
Oaths unrightly. / From all of this I may 
When sick with death-wounds / succour draw ; 
Blame me for that cannot / the King of Men 
For the murder of kinsmen, / when cast forth is my 
Life from my limbs. / Let thee now hasten 
The hoard to behold, / under the hoary stone, 
Beloved Wiglaf, / now that the Worm lieth, 
Sleepeth sore-wounded, / of his silver bereft. 
Be off now in haste, / that I the ancient wealth. 
The gold-hoard may glimpse, / may gaze my fill 
On the shining jewels, / that so more softly I may 
For that mass of treasure / take leave of my 
Life and lordship ^ / which I long did hold. ' 



XXXVIII 

Then swiftly (as I heard) / the son of Weohstan 
When this word was spoken / his wounded lord, 
War-sickened, obeyed, / went in his ringed bymy, 
His braided battle-sark, / under the barrow's roof, 
Saw he then in his triumph, / as by the seat he 

went, 
A masterful tribe-thegn, /treasures many, 
Glistening gold / on the ground gathered, 
Wonders on the walls, / and the Worm's den, 
The old twilight-flier's ; / flagons stood there, 
Far-dead men's vessels, / with none to furbish 

them, 
Husked of their platings. / There were helms in 

plenty. 
Old and rusty, / arm-rings many 
Twisted and tied. / Treasure easily may, 
Gold in the ground, / get from the grasp 
Of any man in the world, / hide it who will. 
So too, set there he saw / a sign all golden 

91 . 



High over the hoard, / of hand-wonders the greatest, 
Locked by skill of limb ; / wherefrom a light so 
shone 
2770 That he the ground there / might get in sight, 

Throughout the wealth on it. / Nor of the Worm 

was there 
Any sign, / for him an edge had slain. 
Then I heard that in the hill / the hoard was rifled, 
The old work of ogres, / by one man only ; 
That his breast he loaded / with bowls and dishes 
As seemed good to himself ; / the sign also he took, 
Brightest of beacons. / The blade now had scathed 

him 
Iron-edged, / of an old lord ,^ 
Him who had held / in his hand those treasures 
2780 A long while. / Lightning-terror he waged 
Hot for his hoard, / with hatred welling 
In the midst of the night, / until by murther he 
perished. 

Fleet was the messenger, / fain to return, 
Driven on by his treasures ; / doubt was tearing 

him 
Whether, full-hearted, / he would find alive 
On yonder plain / the Prince of Weders, 
Power-less, / where he had left him anon. 
Then he with that gold / the glorious Prince, 
The Lord of him / at his Hfe's end, 
2790 Bleeding, found ; / then again began he 

To sprinkle him with water, / until an opening 

word 
Brake from his breast-hoard ; / Beowulf spake, 
Grey-haired, in grief / on the gold he gazed : 
*' I for these riches / to the Ruler of All my thanks 
(To the Worshipful King) / in words will say 
(To the Lord Eternal), / whereon I here do look, 
For that I might / for mine own people 
Ere my kiUing-time / conquer such things. 
Now I for the precious hoard / have paid with my 
2800 Old life laid down, / look thou still 

92 



To the laity *s need ; / here may I no longer be. 

Bid the battle-famed ones / build me a barrow 

Bright with the bale-fire / on the brink of the cliff ; 

It shall for a memory / to my people 

Be walled up high / on the whale's headland, 

So that sea-farers / in future say 

' Beowulf's Barrow ! ' / who their brave ships 

Over the mists of the flood / from afar shall drive.'' 

Did off from his neck / that noble Prince 

A golden ring ; / to his thegn he gave it, 

To the young spear-warrior, / his gold-wrought 

helm. 
Armlet and byrny, / bade him well to use them. 
'' Thou art left at the end / of our kindred, 
Of the Waegmundings ; / all of them Wyrd hath 

swept off. 
Friends of mine / to the fate fore-doomed, 
Excellent earls ; / and I must after them." 
That was the old warrior's / utmost word 
Of the thoughts of his breast, / ere the bale-fire 

he sought, 
Hot battle-waves ; / from his bosom went 
His soul to seek / the salvation of the faithful. 



[XXXIX] 

Thereafter it was / for the young warrior 
III to bear, / that on the earth he saw 
That most beloved, / at his life's end, 
Cruelly suffering. / His killer Hkewise lay, 
The loathsome earth-dragon / of life bereft, 
Struck down in ruin. / The ring-hoard for longer 
That winding Worm / might never wield. 
For him the iron / edges had taken. 
Hard, battle-scarred, / hammers' bequests. 
So that the wide-flier / by wounds made still 
Heltered upon the ground, / his hoard-place near ; 
Nevermore in the welkin / would he wheel for 
sport 

93 



At prime of day, / in the pride of his treasures 

Shewing his shape, / for he had sunk to earth 

By that hero-leader's / handiwork. 

Nay, throughout all lands/little has a man prospered, 

Endowed with might, / (in my hearing) 

Though in every deed / daring he were. 

When he against a poison-reeker's / breath went 

rushing, 
2840 Or a store of rings / with his hands did stir, 
If waking he / its warden found 
Biding in the barrow, / By Beowulf was 
His part in the princely treasure / paid for with 

death ; 
Each of them had / to the end been brought 
Of this fleeting Hfe. 

'Twas not long thereafter 
That the battle -laggards / left the holt. 
Feeble troth-liars, / ten together. 
Who before had not dared / their darts to fling 
In their noble master's / mickle need ; 
2850 But shamefully now / their shields they bare. 

Their garments of war, / where the greyhead lay ; 
They looked upon Wiglaf. / He in weariness sate, 
That fighting foot-man, / his friend's shoulder 

near. 
Wakening him with water ; / no whit did it speed 

him. 
Nor might he in this world, / much though he 

wished it. 
In that lord of spears / the life preserve, 
Nor the Wielder's will / a whit unbind. 
The Doom of God / the deeds must rule 
Of every man, / as even now it doth. 
2860 Then out of that youngster / a grim answer 

Quickly came, / to those who their courage had 

lost. 
Wiglaf made utterance, / Weohstan's son, 
A lad sore -hearted / seeing those he loved not : 
" Lo ! This may he say, / who in sooth would 

speak, 

94 



That the lord of the tribe / who treasures gave 

you, 
The soldier-clothing / wherein clad ye stand here, 
When he at the ale-benches / oft bestowed 
On the sitters in hall / helms and byrnies, 
A prince on his people, / on the proudest-hearted 
2870 Whom, far or near, / he might anywhere find. 
That wholly he / those weeds of war 
And wantonly had wasted, / w^hen warfare came 

to him. 
Never did our Folk-King / of his field-comrades 
Need to boast ; / howbeit God bestowed on him, 
The Wielder of Victories, / that he should avenge 

himself 
Alone with his blade, / when the brave were 

lacking. 
I could but little / life-protection 
Give him in the fight ; / I began, no less, 
Beyond my measure / my master to help. 
2S80 Always was he the sufferer / when with my sword 

I aimed 
At the deadly foe ; / the fire less direfuUy 
Welled from his head. / Helpers too few 
Trooped to their King / when his time was come. 
Now shall gold-sharing / and sword-giving. 
Every home -joy / from your households, 
All hope, languish ; / of land-rights must 
All that family, / first and last. 
Wander empty, / whenas the athelings 
From afar the fame / of your flight shall hear, 
2890 Your gloryless deed. / Death is more good 
For any earl / than infamous life.*' 



XL 

Bade he then that battle-work / at the barrier be 

told, 
Up over the ocean-cliff, / where those earls in 

company 

95 



All morning long / mourning had sate 
Bearing their shields, / to both chances looking ; 
To the end of ^his days / and to the after-coming 
Of the man they loved. / Little did he keep silent 
The new tidings, / who up the ness rode, 
But he soothfully / said to them all : 
2900 '' Now is the Pleasure-Giver / of the 

Weder-People, 
The Duke of Geats, / on death-bed fast, 
He hath won to his rest / by the Worm's deed. 
Levelled with him lieth / his hfe's winner 
By knife-wounds sickened ; / with his sword he 

might not 
On that evil creature, / at any cost, 
Work a wound. / Wiglaf sitteth 
Over Beowulf, / Weohstan's boy, 
One earl over another, / and him unliving, 
Holdeth with honour / watch by the heads 
2910 Of friend and foe. / Now for the folk is 

foreboding 
Of a season of conflict, / soon as commonly 
By Frisians and Franks / the fall of the King 
Is known afar. 

That feud was shapen 
Hard against the Hugas, / when Higelac came 
Faring with a fleet / to the Frisian land. 
Where, him the Hetware / humbled in battle, 
Who achieved by their excellence, / overpowering 

him. 
That the byrny-wearer / must bow before them ; 
He fell amid his foot-men ; / no finery gave 
2920 That elder to his gallants. / From us ever since 

Has mercy been withheld / by the Merowingians. 
Nor do I in the Swede-Folk's / swearing trust 

either. 
Nor a whit expect it ; / for 'twas widely known 
That Ongentheow / had thieved the life 
Of Haethcyn Hrethling / by Ravenswood, 
When, full of pride, / the Fighter- Scilfings 
Visited first / the Geatish folk. 

96 



Them soon the aged / father of Ohthere, 

Old and awesome, / with onslaught answered, 

Brake that wise seaman, / his wife delivered 

The greybeard his gossip, /of her gold bereft, 

Onela s mother / and Ohthere 's also, 

And then followed / his deadly foes 

Until they escaped / in evil plight 

Into Ravenswood, / wanting their lord. 

Set he then with a great host / about the sword's 

leavings 
Wounded and weary ; / woes often promised he 
To the anguished troop / that endless night ; 
Said that in the morning / with the sword's edge 
Get them he would, / on the gallows-tre« some 
A game /or the birds. / Bliss came after 
To their sorry minds / soon as the day broke 
Wheri they of Higelac's / horns and trumpets 
Heard the blast, / when the brave one came 
With the force of his tribe / their track following. 

XLI 

Was that swathe blood-sweated / of Swedes and 

Geats, 
That welter of warriors / widely seen, 
How that folk against them / a feud awakened. 
Bewent him then the brave one / with his band of 

kinsmen, 
Old, full of sorrow, / a fastness to seek, 
Earl Ongentheow / uphill removed ; 
He had of Higelac's / fighting heard, 
Boastful battlecraft ; / nor beheved in withstanding, 
1 hat the men of the sea / he might resist, 
From the ocean-harriers / his hoard defend 
His bairns and his bride ; / he bent him back thence. 
Old, under an earth-wall. / Then pursuit was 

ottered 

To the Swedish people, / the standard of Higelac: 
Ihe plain of peace / they passed forth over 

97 H 



2960 When the Hrethelings / to the hedges thronged. 
There was Ongentheow / by edged swords, 
With his bleached locks, / to bay driven, 
So that People's King / consent he must 
To Eafor's sole judgment. / Him in anger 
Wulf Wonreding / with his weapon so reached, 
That from him at the stroke / in streams the blood 

sprang 
Forth under his hair. / Yet not fearful was he. 
The hoary Scilfing, / but in haste repaid 
With a stronger counter / that crashing stroke, 
2970 When the king of the tribe / turned him thither. 
Nor might the swift / son of Wonred 
To the old carl / an answer give, 
For he on his head / the helmet had shattered 
So that, foul with blood, / bow down he must. 
And fell on the field ; / nor yet fated was he. 
But raised himself, / though the wound had rent 

him. 
Let the hardy / thegn of Higelac 
His broad blade, / where his brother lay. 
Hoary sword Eotenish, / helm gigantic 
2980 Break over the shield-wall; / then bowed the King, 
The People's Herdsman / to the heart was pierced. 
Then were there many who wrapped up / 

the wounds of their kinsman. 
Rapidly raised him, / when room was made for 

them. 
So that they of the slaughter-field / should be 

masters. 
Then one captain / stripped the other. 
Took from Ongentheow / his iron byrny. 
His hard sword hiked / and his helm therewith ; 
The hoary one's harness / to Higelac he bare. 
He those precious things took, / and promised him 

fairly 
2990 Prizes for his people, / and performed the same ; 
Pay for that punishing / did the Prince of Geats, 
Hrethel's offspring, / when to his home he came, 
Eofor and Wulf / with endless wealth, 

98 



Gave each of them / an hundred thousands, 
Land and locked rings ; / nor for lavishness need 

blame him 
Any man in this middle-garth, / since for their 

meed they had fought ; 
And then to Eofor he gave / his only daughter 
To plenish his home, / as a pledge of favour. 

That is the feud / and the foemanship. 
Slaughter of men, / as it seems to my mind. 
Wherefore will seek us out / the Swedish people, 
Whenas they learn / that the lord of us 
Has ended his Hfe, / of old who held 
Against hatred of enemies / hoard and realm, 
And when fighters were fallen / the fierce 

Shieldings ; 
The folk's good fashioned, / and further again 
Earlship achieved. / At once meseems best 
That we come there to look / on our Lord and 

King, 
And bring him back, / who bracelets gave us. 
To his fire faring. / Nor shall a few things only 
Melt with the mighty one, / for there is a mass of 

wealth. 
Gold uncounted, / grimly bargained for, 
And now at the last / with his own Hfe 
Bracelets hath he bought ; / these shall the blaze 

swallow. 
The flame thatch over ; / never an earl shall wear 
A jewel for reminder, / nor maiden sheen 
Have on her throat / a ring for adornment. 
But gloomy in mind, / of their gold bereft. 
Often, not once, / else-lands shall they tread. 
Now that the leader of hosts / has laid aside 

laughter. 
Sport and song. / Wherefore shall spears 
Many, morning-cold, / be clasped by fingers. 
Hoisted in hand ; / never shall the harper's strain 
Waken the warrior, / but the wan raven, 
Fond over the fallen, / full of news, 

99 . 



To the eagle shall say / how at the eating he sped, 
When he with the wolf / harried the corpses." 
So that bold soldier / was saying ever 
Loathly tidings ; / he lied not much 
3030 As to fate or fact. 

His friends all arose ; 
They went unbHthely / under the Eagle's Ness 
With welling tears, / the wonder to behold. 
Found they there on the sand, / where his soul 

had left him. 
His resting-bed holding, / him who rings had 

given them 
In earlier times ; / then was the end of his days 
Come to the good one, / when the King of War, 
The Weders' Prince, / by wondrous-death 

perished. 
First they beheld / a being more strange, 
A Worm on the ground / against them there, 
3040 A foul thing lying ; / 'twas the flame-dragon 
Their grim scather, / scorched with fire. 
He was fifty / foot-measures 
Long, as he lay. / Aloft he had sported 
In time of night, / and netherwards then went 
His den to visit ; / in death was he fast there, 
He had his earth-cavern / used to the end. 
By him stood / bowls and flagons. 
Dishes lay, / and dear swords. 
Rusty, through-eaten, / as they in the earth's 

bosom 
3050 A thousand winters / there had dwelt ; 

Since it was, that birth-right / of boundless 

strength, 
The gold of ancient men, / by magic guarded, 
So that to the ring-chamber / might not reach 
Any son of man ; / save that God Himself, 
The Truth-King of Triumphs, / entrusted to 

whom He would 
(He is mankind's Helper) / the hoard to open, 
Even unto such a man / as meet to Him seemed. 



100 



XLII 

Then ^twas plainly seen / that the way was not 

prosperous 
Of them who unrightly / inside had hidden 
3060 Wealth under the walls. / The warden already had 

slain 
Some few of them ; / Then for the feud was 

vengeance 
Wrathfully wreaked. / A wonder 'tis wherever 
An excellent earl /at the end arrives 
Of the Hfe allotted him, / when no longer he may, 
A man among his mates, / in the mead-hall dwell. 
So was it with Beowulf / when he the barrow's 

warden 
Sought, and keen strife ; / himself he knew not 
By what his world-sundering / should be wrought. 
Until doomsday / so deeply had cursed it 
3070 The mighty princes / who had put it there, 
That his soul should / of sins be guilty, 
Fixed in idol-shrines, / fast in hell-bonds, 
Plagued and poxed, / who plundered that place. 
Yet he was not gold-hungry ; / rather had he 
His Owner's Favour / ever followed. 

Wiglaf made utterance, / Weohstan's son : 
Oft shall many an earl / by one man's will 
Cruelly suffer, / as is come upon us. 
Nor could we prevail / on our loved Prince, 
3080 The Kingdom's Shepherd, / by any counsel. 
That he would not go / to that gold-warden. 
But let him lie / where long-time he was. 
Abide within his walls / to the world's end ; 
He held to his high calling. / The hoard is to be 

seen. 
Grimly gained ; / was that gift too costly 
Which thither lured / the Lord of us. 
I was inside there / and all of it saw. 
The ornaments of the house / when 'twas opened 

to me 

lOI 



Nowise pleasantly, / passage allowed 
3090 In under the earth-wall. / I at once seized 
Much in my hands, / a mighty burthen 
Of hoarded treasures, / hither out I bare them 
To my own King ; / quick was he still. 
Wise and whole-minded. / Very many things spake 
The old man in his grief, / and to greet you ordered 

me, 
Bade you furnish fitly, / for your friend's deeds, 
On the bale-fire's site / a barrow tall, 
Mickle and mighty, / as of men he was 
The worthiest warrior / the wide world over, 
3100 While the wealth of the burgh / he well might use. 
Let us now be off / on another errand 
To seek and to see / the subtle store-house. 
The wonder within the walls ; / I will you guide, 
That ye from near / enough may look 
On bracelets and broad gold. / Be the bier in 

readiness. 
Quickly fashioned, / when out we come, 
And lay we thereon / the Lord of us. 
The man beloved, / where long he shall 
Under the Wielder's / watch abide." 
3110 Bade he them command, / that boy of Weohstan's, 
That hero of the host, / heroes many. 
Who buildings owned, / that they the bale- wood 
Should fetch from afar, / being folk-owners. 
To the brave one's side. / *' Now shall the blaze 

devour — 
The wan flame waxing — / the Warriors' 

Strengthener, 
Him who oft abode / the iron showers. 
When a storm of darts / driven by strings 
Shot over the shield-wall, / the shaft held to its 

duty. 
And with feather-gear fain / the flying-barb 

followed." 
3120 And now the sage / son of Weohstan 

Called from the throng / thegns of the King, 
Seven together, / the seemliest ; 

102 



One of eight he went / under the enemy roof ; 
One man of battle / bare in his hand 
A flaming torch, / who in front of them trod. 
Nor was it left to the lot / who should loot that 

hoard, 
When, all unguarded, / any part of it 
The soldiers saw / in that cellar abiding. 
Lying there for a moment ; / little did any mourn 
That they must at once / fetch out from thence 
Those dear treasures. / The dragon eke they 

shoved, 
The Worm over the wall-cliff, / let the wave take 

him. 
The flood enclasp / that keeper of jewels. 
There was wounden gold / on a wain laden, 
All unnumbered ; / and the Atheling borne, 
The hoary warrior, / to the Whale's Ness. 



XLIII 

Piled for him then / the Geatish people 

A bier on the earth / unyielding in strength. 

And hanged it with helmets, / hero-shields 

Bright byrnies, / the boon he had asked ; 

Laid they on the midst of it/ their mighty Prince, 

The heroes lamenting / the Lord they loved. 

Began then on the barrow^ / of bale-fires the 

mightiest 
A warrior to awaken ; / the wood-smoke soared 
Swart over the fire-swathes ; / the singing flame 
With weeping mingled / (the wind-eddies lay 

still) 
Until his bone-house / it had broken. 
Hot in its heart. / Unhappily minded. 
Moodily they mourned / their master's death ; 
Also a weary lay / the wife of old 
For Beowulf J j with bounden hair 
Sang in her sorrow, / said once and again 
That harmful days j and harsh she dreaded^ 

103 



Wanton slaughter, / terror of warriors^ 
Humbling and slavery. 

Heaven swallowed the reek. 

Wrought they then, / the Weder-People, 
A hill upon the cliff / that was high and broad, 
By Wave-farers / widely seen ; 
And timbered about / in ten days 
31 60 The battle-chief's beacon ; / what was left from 

the burning 
With a wall they enwrapped / in the worthiest 

way 
Men foremost in wisdom / might have found. 
In the barrow they laid / bracelets and jewels, 
All such harnessings / as from the hoard erstwhile 
Angry men / had taken out ; 
They left the treasure of earls / for the earth to 

hold, 
Grold among gravel, / where again now it liveth, 
To all men useless, / as of old it was. 

Then around the mound / rode battle-champions, 
3170 Athelings' sons, / twelve in all. 

Who would keen their master ^ / mourn their King, 
Tuned words measure, / and tell of the man ; 
They exalted his earlship, / and his excellent work 
Doughty they deemed, / as due it is 
That their willing lord / men should laud in words. 
Should love in their hearts, / when he must forth 
Out of his body / be borne at length. 

So grieved and plained / the Geatish People 
For their Lord's fall, / his hearth-fellows ; 
3 1 80 They said that he was / a World King, 
Of men the mildest / and to men kindest. 
To his people most pleasant / and for praise most 
eager. 



104 



Finnsburgh 



** It is never the horns / of the house are burning ? '* 
Brake then into speech / the battle-young King : 
'' This nor dawneth from the east, / nor here any 

dragon flieth, 
Nor here on this hall / are the horns burning ; 
But the Boar forth bear they, / birds are singing, 
Clattereth the grey-sark, / clasheth the war-wood, 
Shield to shaft answereth. / Now shineth this 

moon 
Waxing under the welkin ; / now arise woeful 

deeds 
Which battle against this people /will bring to pass, 
10 But awaken ye now, / warriors mine, 

Take hold of your shields, / as heroes shape you, 
Fight in the fore-front, / be firm in courage." 
Then arose many a gold-laden thegn, / girded on 

him his sword ; 
Then led to the doors / the lordly champions, 
Sigeferth and Eaha, / their swords drew they. 
And at the other doors / Ordlaf and Guthlaf 
And Hengest's self ; / he hied in their wake. 
Then Garulf again / of Guthere besought 
That they so free-born a life / in the first sally 
20 Should not bear in harness, / to that hall's doors. 
Now that one hardy in fight / was fain to 

harry it ; 
But he asked over them all / in open speech. 
Dire-minded hero, / who was holding the doors. 
'* Sigeferth is my name," quoth he, / '' I am the 

Secgas' lord, 
A wanderer widely known. / Many the woes IVe 

endured. 
Hard battles. / For thee now is it here decreed, 
Whatsoever thou thyself / wilt seek at my hands." 

IOC 



Then was there in the hall / havoc of slaughter, 
Must the curved board / in keen hands, 
30 The bones' guard, burst. / The burgh-floor 

dinned 
When in that fight / was fallen Garulf , 
The first of all / the earth-dwellers, 
Guthlaf's son, / about him gallants many. 
Roamed over the corpses / the raven, wandered 
Swart and sallow-brown ; / the sword-gleam shone 
As though all Finnsburgh / on fire it were. 
Nor heard I ever that more worthily / in wars of 

men 
Sixty battle-heroes / bare themselves better, 
Nor ever did swains for their sweet mead / give 

seemlier payment 
40 Than to Hnaef was paid / by his house-fellows. 
They fought five days, / yet fell there none 
Of the doughty comrades ; / but the doors they 

held. 
Then bewent him the wounded hero / on his way 

going, 
He said that his byrny / broken was, 
No helpful garment, / and eke was his helmet 

pierced. 
Then swiftly asked him / the Shepherd of the Folk 
How the warriors / with their wounds were 

thriving, 
48 And which of the youths . 



106 



Waldere 
I 

she heartened him eagerly : 

" Indeed Weland's / work not faileth 
Any among men / who the Mimming can, 
The hoary one handle. / Oft in the host hath fallen 
Blood-sweating and sword-wounded / swain after 

other. 
Attila's Vanguard, / let not thy valour yet 
Dwindle to-day, / thy dominance pass. 

For the day is come 
When truly thou shalt take / of two things either ; 
10 Thy life shalt lose / or lasting glory 
Own among men, / Aelf here's son. 
Never of thee, my friend, / the fault do I name 
That I have seen thee / in the sword-play 
By ignominy / with any man 
Avoid to fight, / or flee to the wall. 
Defending thy body, / though foes in plenty 
Thy byrny coat / with their blades were hewing ; 
But thou ever farther / to fight didst seek. 
To parley beyond thy border ; / therefore thy 

peril I dreaded, 
20 For that thou too fiercely / to fight didst seek 
In that encounter, / the other man's 
Pitched battle. / Prosper thyself 
By gallant deeds, / while God for thee careth. 
Nor be troubled for thy sword ; / to thee is the 

choicest of treasure 
Given, to help thee, / wherewith thou shalt 

Guthhere's 
Boasting abase, / because he that battle began, 
Unfairly, / the first to seek. 

Refused he the sword / and the flagon jewelled, 
And bracelets many ; / now, both of them lacking, 

107 



3© Shall hie from this fight / the lord, to find 

His ancient heritage, / or here, first, slumber 
If he the " 



II 

" a better blade 

Save that one only / which eke I have 

In a stone chest / stealthily hidden. 

I wot that Theodric / thought to send it 

To Widia's self, / and great wealth also 

Of treasure with that blade ; / and a troop of them 

beside him 
With gold to adorn ; / he had got his fee of old 

40 When out of his narrow straits / Nithhad's kinsman, 
Weland^s son, / Widia sent him ; 
When from the giants' fold / forth he hastened/' 
Waldere made answer, / a warrior stout. 
Held in his hand / his help in battle. 
The grip of his war-blade, / and in words boasted : 
" What ! didst thou indeed believe, / Lord of the 

Burgunds, 
That me Hagena's hand / had held in battle. 
And driven from the fight ? / Fetch if thou darest 
At my hoary byrny, / thus battle-weary. 

50 Is happed here about my shoulders / the heirloom 
of Aelfhere, 
Good, broad-fronted, / with gold fashioned. 
In all things blameless, / an atheling's garment 
For him to have / when his hand defendeth 
His life-hoard from foes ; / nor proves it false to me 
When men unkind, / again beginning, 
Meet with their blades, / as me ye did. 
Yet victory may he own / who ever is 
Ready and resolute / for all things righteous ; 
Whoso him to the Holiest / for help entrusteth, 

60 To God for favour ; / will he find it readily 
If on that reward / he thinketh ever. 
Then may the proud / divide possessions. 
Wielding power ; / that is 

108 



9> 



Deor 

Weland among the Wurmas / wandered in exile, 
A single-minded earl / he suffered hardship, 
He had for his comrades / care and longing, 
Winter-cold wretchedness ; / woe he often found. 
When Nithhad him / with need constrained. 
Bitter sinew-cutting / of a better man. 
That overpassing, / this also may. 

To Beadohild was not / her brothers' death 
As sore in her soul / as herself's own plight, 
lo For clearly she / conceived had 

That she was mothering ; / nor might she ever 
With certainty think / how that should be. 

13 We have heard, we many, / of Hilda's raping. 

14 That overpassing, / this also may. 

Was deep beyond plumbing / the passion of the 

Geat 
So that sorrow of love / his sleep all stole. 
That overpassing, / this also may. 

Theodoric was banished j thirty winters 
From the Maerings' burgh ; / to many 'twas 
known. 
20 That overpassing, / this also may. 

We have asked and learned of / Eormanrices 
Wolfish thoughts / (he ruled widely the folk 
Of the Gothic realm) ; / that was a grim King. 
Sate many a wight / by sorrows bounden. 
Woe awaiting, / wished well enough 
That overcome / that kingdom were. 

That overpassing, / this also may. 



109 



Sitteth any sorrowful, / severed from fortune, 
His soul darkened, / to himself thinketh he 
30 That his share of evil / endless is ? 

Let him then bethink him / that beyond this world 
Our Lord All-Wise / often changeth ; , 
To many an earl / His Mercy sheweth, 
Sure glory ; / to some a share of woes 

And I of myself / will say this thing, 
That a while I was / the Heodenings' bard ; 
To my duke was I dear ; / and Deor was my name, 
I had, for many winters, / a worthy office, 
A handsome lord, / until Heorrenda now, 
40 A man skilled in lays, / the land-right has taken 

Which the Guardian of Earls / of old had given me. 
That overpassing, / this also may. 



no 



Notes 

WIDSITH 

I must again turn the reader to the edition of Widstth, a Study 
in Old English Heroic Legend, by Mr. R. W. Chambers, pub- 
lished in 1 912 by the Cambridge University Press. There are, 
in the poem, 143 Unes ; in the book 274 pages, on which the 
innumerable stories of history and myth suggested by each of 
the names in Widsith s catalogues are cunningly explored. Here 
I can refer to those only of the first importance or who figure in 
the other poems. 

1 Widsith, the real, assumed, or symbolical name of a wandering 
minstrel, means simply ** the wide traveller.'' The lock of his 
word-hoard is, of course, the ** barrier of teeth " which we find 
in Homer. 

2 I have used the word '' meiny " here, and several times in Beo- 
wulf, to render the Old English ** maegth,*' a tribe, or group of 
people. For this word as for its parent ** maeg," a kinsman or 
comrade, there is no good equivalent with the** m ''initial which 
alliteration requires, though ** maeg " can sometimes be rendered 
" mate." 

3 The Myrgings seem (see 43) to have lived south of the Angles, 
i.e., between the Eider, the Elbe and the Baltic. 

4 But Ealhhild is a Lombard, daughter of Eadwine (Audoin) ; 
Widsith seems to have escorted her when she went as bride to 
the Gothic King Eormanric. 

8 Eormanric (Hermanaricus), who died about a.d. 375 in his 

I loth year, remained for centuries a type of the fierce and martial 
tyrant. In Beowulf (1200) Hama fled from his cunning, bearing 
off the Brosings' Collar. Deor (21) had heard of his wolfish 
thoughts. ** Fierce and faithless " he seems to Widsith, yet he 
(89) ** was good to me ; a bracelet he gave me " ; and his 
courtiers were ** the best of boon- companions." 

15 Alexander seems an anachronism, but his story had travelled 
through the West, and Jordanes speaks of him as a parallel to 
Eormanric. 

19 Under Gifica (Gibeche) the Burgunds were still neighbours of 
Huns, Goths, Greeks and Finns in the Vistula country. In 
Waldere we find them settled in the West, under Gunther. 

20 The Greeks are called " Creacs " here and in 76 Csesar here is 
the Emperor of the East. 

21 See my note to Deor, 36. 

22 Wada, whose name survives in Yorkshire, had a great literary 
career. We find in Chaucer and Mallory rumours of his strength 

III 



and of his magic boat. He was also ascribed as father to Weland. 

24 Theodric the Frank, son of Clovis, was father of Theodebert, 
who killed Beowulf's uncle Higelac in Friesland. 

25 Breca of the Brondings is the hero who swam with Beowulf 
(499-606). 

27 Finn, son of Folcwalda, is the hero of the episode in Beowulf 

(1068-1159) and the lord of Finnsburgh. 
29 Hnaef, son of Hoc, was the brother of Finn's Queen, Hilde- 

burh, and was killed at Finnsburgh {Beowulf, 1070). 

31 Ongentheow is, in Beowulf, the father of Onela and Ohthere, 
who is killed in the fight with Higelac at Ravenswood. 

32 The Longbeards (Lombards) are here still in their northern 
home on the banks of the Elbe. 

33 The Hetwaras (Hatuarii) figure twice in Beowulf (lines 2363, 
2916) as the enemy, fighting whom Higelac was killed in Fries- 
land. 

35 Offa : there were two Kings of this name, one in the contin- 
ental Anglia, the other, his descendant, an actual King of Mercia. 
One of them is, in Beowulf, the husband of a fierce Queen, 
Thrytho. The story of the first Ofl^a is told at length by Saxo. 
In youth he was stupid and speechless, but came forward as the 
champion of his country, which he defended in a duel by Fifeldor 
(the river Eider). 

44 The Swaef (Suabian) is apparently equivalent here to Myrging. 
Of the latter nothing can be said with certainty beyond what 
this poem says. 

45 Hrothwulf (5^oz^«//^, 10 17, 11 81) was probably son of Hrothgar's 
brother, Halga the Kind {id. 61). He is also hero of the Saga of 
Rolf Kraki, where his father is Helgi, his uncle Hroarr, and his 
grandfather Half dan. Froni Beowulf we guess that the peace 
between uncle and nephew is not to last : in line 1163 : 

even w^here the goodly twain 
Sate, the uncle and the nephew ; still were they at each at peace 
together, 

and earlier (10 15) we find 

the kinsmen of all there . . . 
Hrothgar and Hrothulf . Heorot within was 
Filled with friends ; no fashion of treason 
The Shielding-People shaped that while. 

Later, we can discern from Saxo that Hrothwulf deposed and 
killed the son of his uncle Hrothgar, and that he himself was 
attacked and killed by Heoroweard, the son of Hrothgar 's elder 
brother, mentioned in Beowulf only as being deprived of the 
succession to his father's armour. 
4S Ingeld, son of Froda, is the Heathobeard prince mentioned by 
Beowulf (2064) as betrothed to Hrothgar 's daughter, in order 
to heal an old feud. What that feud was is suggested here. 

112 



►5 The Burgunds {cf, 19) have perhaps moved to their Western 
home. Guthhere is the ** Lord of the Burgunds " addressed 
in Waldere, (56). 

-JO Aelfwine and his father, Eadwine, are the Alboin and Audoin, 
who brought the Lombards into Italy. It seems here that Ead- 
\yine had also a daughter, Ealhhild, who was given in marriage 
to Eormanric. That Audoin died in 565, whereas Eormanric 
was born about 265 is a discrepancy which need not detain us. 

76 This Caesar is probably the Western, as opposed to the Eastern 
Emperor in line 20 ; and the Welsh kingdom is Rome. 

79 '' Skating- Finns : *' the Scritobini or Scridefinnas, so called from 
their practice of crossing the ground on snow-shoes or skis. 

80 '* Lidwicings : " the Armoricans. The Britons having invaded 
their country, killed the men and cut the tongues of the women, 
so that their children might not learn the Armorican tongue. 
Hence, says the chronicler, ** illos vocamus in nostra lingua 
Letewicion, id est Semitacentes, quoniam confuse loquuntur.'* 

91 This is obscure, but compare the sword given by Valdabrun to 
Guenes in the Song 0} Roland, 620 : 

** Take now this sword, and better sword has none ; 
Into the hilt a thousand coins are run." 

93 The poet gives the treasure he has received in a foreign court to 
his own King, on his return. So we find Beowulf presenting the 
best of Hrothgar s gifts to his master, Higelac. 

113 ** East-Gota, old and gallant," is the earliest, save Alexander, 
of the heroes who figure in Widsith, being Ostrogotha, King of 
all the Goths, who crossed the Danube and wasted Moesia and 
Thrace in the reign of the Emperor Philip (a.d. 244-249). 
Cassiodorus says of him : ** Enituit enim Ostrogotha patientia." 

115 '* Theodric." We have seen Theodric the Frank at line 24; 
Mr. Chambers argues and, I think, proves, that this is the Gothic 
champion, Dietrich von Bern, whom legend makes the nephew 
of Eormanric and a victim of his treachery. This is the Theo- 
dric who (in Waldere) thought to send a sword, and great 
treasure to Widia ; and whose story is hinted in two lines of 
Deor, Seafola then becomes his retainer, Sabene of Ravenna. 

121 '' The Wistula Wood : " Mr. Chambers says : ** The Goths left 
the Vistula towards the end of the second century a.d. (Hodgkin's 
Italy, I, 4c). These lines, therefore, preserve a very early tra- 
dition, but we can draw no exact chronological argument from 
the allusion except that we are here dealing with saga and not 
with history. The wood is probably to be identified with the 
Mirkwood which, in later Icelandic story, separates Goths and 
Huns." 

124 Wudga is in Waldere Widia, the son of Weland by Beadohild, 
daughter of Nithhad. In Jordanes he is ** Vidigoia, Gothorum 
fortissimus," in the later German epics he is Wittich, a type of 

113 I 



treachery. Hama is obscurely mentioned in Beowulf (1198) as 
carrying off the Brosings' Collar, and flying from Eormanric s 
cunning. In the Thidreks Saga he figures as Heimir Studasson, 
who after a long career as a robber-chief enters a monastery. 
(See my note on Beowulf 1198). From 129 we see that Wudga 
and Hama were not natives of the country they ruled, though 
we are not told where that country was, or how the two came 
together. 
135 The poem ends, as it began, with nine lines, not put into the 
mouth of Widsith himself, but generally descriptive of the poet s 
lot, which has altered little in these fifteen centuries. 

BEOWULF 

4 There is some confusion between this ** Scyld Scefing," Shield 

of the Sheaf, and the Angles' ancestor Sceaf, to whom William 
of Malmesbury ascribes a similar origin : " Iste ut ferunt, in 
quandam insulam Germaniae Scandzam . . . appulsus navi 
sine remige, puerulus, posito ad caput frumenti manipulo, 
dormiens, ideoque Sceaf nuncupatus, ab horainibus regionis 
ilUus pro miraculo exceptus et sedulo nutritus : adulta aetate 
regnavit in oppido quod tunc Slaswic, nunc vero Haithebi ap- 
pellatur.'* Sceaf appears in the Anglo-Saxon pedigrees as a son 
born in the Ark to Noah, and ancestor of the English Kings. In 
Widsith (32) Sceaf rules the Lombards. On the other hand, 
Scyld is the Danes' ancestor, whence their name of Shieldings. 

18 This Beowulf is not the hero of the poem. He disappears finally 
at line 56. 

33 Here, as in the fine passage 2231-2270, the poet touches on cust- 
oms which even to him were archaic, with feeling and imagina- 
tion. 

57 Halfdane and his sons come also in Saxo and in the Saga of Rolf 
Kraki. From 467 we learn that Heorogar died in Hrothgar s 
youth ; from 2158 that he did not leave his armour to his son, 
Heoroweard, but that Hrothgar gave it to Beowulf. Hrothgar is 
at once a type of the wise old ruler, and of the doomed son of an 
accursed race. Throughout all his misfortunes, when he is wholly 
helpless, he is called the Helm of Shieldings, the Shepherd of 
his Folk, and so forth. Nor is his story finished in Beowulf, We 
learn (2020) that he wished to give his daughter to the Heatho- 
beard Prince Ingeld, in order to heal an old feud. But he himself, 
Saxo tells us, was slain by one '* Hodbroddus," in whose name 
the Heathobeard seems to lurk. His sons, Hrethric and Hroth- 
mund, were still young (11 80, etc.), and he was succeeded by 
Hrothulf, the son of his younger brother, Halga. Halga is the 
Helgi Hundingsbane of the Sagas, and Hrothulf is Rolf Kraki. 
In Saxo the dispossessed cousin, Heoroweard, reappears (as 

114 



Hiarwanis), falling upon Rolf and his men in the blazing hall. 

Ij Thus, though it is nowhere said in the poem, the Shielding 

![ dynasty was one stained with fratricide and other tragic frailties. 

ll Against this background, too familiar for statement to the list- 

Ij eners gathered about the singing poet, the simplicity, honesty 

I and courage of Beowulf and the Geats are unmistakably out- 

I lined. 

jfc The MS. has ** hyrde ic th. elan cwen heatho-scilfingas heals- 
gebedda.'' ** Heard I that elan " (or " ela s ") " queen, a Battle- 

I Scilfing s neck-bedfellow.'' Grundtvig suggested that elan is 

I part of the word Onelan, and that Halfdane s fourth child, a 

daughter, was married to the Swedish King Onela, of whom 
later. Mr. Wyatt reads ** hyrde ic, thaet Elan cwen Ongentheowes 
waes," making the lady's name Elan, and herself the wife of 
Ongentheow. This identifies her with the '' gossip " in line 
2930, and makes her mother of Onela and Ohthere. Another 
suggestion is to borrow the names Signy and Saevil from the 
Saga of Rolf Kraki and read*' hyrde ic, thaet Sigeneow Saewelan 
cwen waes." But the matter is of little importance. 

63 The Swedes are called Scilfings or Scylfings, as the Danes are 
called Scyldings (Shieldings). Both names are compounded, 
usually to help out alliteration ; so that we have North — , 
South — , East — , West — , Spear — , Ring — , Bright-Danes, 
Honour — , Triumph- Shieldings, etc. The Swedish Kings in 
Beowulf are Ongentheow and his son, Onela. A younger son, 
Ohthere, is father of Eanmund and Eadgils, who rebel against 
Onela, are banished, and take refuge with Beowulf's cousin, 
Heardred, at the Geatish court. This results in the campaigns 
described towards the end of Beowulf, 

68 Heorot means Hart. The horns (82) were probably antlers fixed 
to or carved upon the gables as symbols. 

83 ** Nor was it long " — this refers to the fight between Hrothgar 
and the Heathobeards ; see Widsith 45-9. It was, perhaps, in a 
later fight that Hrothgar was killed, and the first fight may have 
come before Grendel's invasion. 

92 This hymn, in its reiteration of a simple thought, recalls the 
famous Hymn of Caedmon, and is probably contemporary. 
Properly speaking, there are no Christian passages in Beowulf, 
but this seems to indicate that the poet had had a monastic 
schooling. Notice, too, at 175 his contempt for the heathen prac- 
tices to which, after and in spite of this hymn, his Danes revert. 

I02 In Beowulf the words " gast," a ghost or spirit, and *' gist," a 
guest or stranger, are both often written ** gaest," which leads 
to confusion. But a guest, in Old English, was seldom an ex- 
pected, and not often a welcome guest. Hence to this midnight 
murderer one word is as fitting as the other. The villain enters 
before the hero. 



^©7 This, though not a *' Christian passage/' implies an acquaint- 
ance with, at least, the Old Testament. ** He " in 115 is still 
Grendel. 

168 This is one of the cruces of the poem. A literal rendering is 
•' Nor he the " (or '' that ") '' Gift-Stool greet " (or ** visit ") 
** might, with treasure before the Creator, nor know his mind " 
(or ** nor have his desire "). The difficulty is to determine 
whether ** he " is Hrothgar or Grendel, and whether " his " is 
Hrothgar s, Grendels, or the Creator s mind. On the whole I 
prefer to take *' he " as Hrothgar ; its prominence in the line 
suggests a fresh subject, and Grendel was subject of the last 
sentence. This reading makes line 170 simple also. Hrothgar 
was ashamed because he could not visit the Gift- Stool, the 
Sacred Throne or Royal Altar in his Hall, from which he had 
planned to deal out shares of wealth to all his people. And he 
could not visit it because the hall was defiled by Grendel. On 
the other hand, it is held that '* he " is Grendel, who was allowed 
to ravage the hall, but prevented by some charm from violating 
the sanctuary, and from interpreting (as the King must) the Will 
of God. 

180 This follows harshly upon the hymn of lines 92-98. But one can 
imagine that a poet, himself a convert or the son of converts to 
Christianity in England, would feel some doubt as to the faith 
of his Continental ancestors. 

194 ** Higelac's Thegn " is the hero of the poem, Beowulf, the son 
of Ecgtheow, by a daughter of the Geatish King Hrethel. From 
this point in the story the Danes fade into insignificance, and 
Beowulf and his " handful " hold the field. The Geats are placed 
by Widsith (58) between the Swedes and the South-Danes. 
They seem to have lived in the southern part of modern Sweden, 
beyond Lakes Wener and Wetter, and to have waged incessant 
war with the Swedes across these lakes. ** Was deep beyond 
plumbing,'' says Deor, ** the passion of the Geat," meaning, 
apparently, Nithhad, the captor and tormentor of Weland the 
Smith. 

340 There is no gap here, but some words are plainly missing. I 
follow Bugge's emendation. Throughout the text I have printed 
in italics all words that represent serious additions to or alterations 
of the MSS. of these poems. 

303 The Boar's image worn upon the helmet (as crests were worn in 
the days of chivalry) was a symbol of Freya. Its use is mentioned 
by Tacitus {Germania, xlv.) : " Insigne superstitionis formas 
aprorum gestant : id pro armis omnique tutela securum deae 
cultorem etiam inter hostis praestat." And what remains of such 
a helmet was found in a Derbyshire barrow in 1848. 

340 The Weders are the Geats. 

389 These two half-lines were suggested by Grein to remedy the 

116 



defective alliteration, and fill a gap in the narrative. There is none 
in the MS. here or in 403. 

Etins seem to have existed on land and sea. A thousand years 
later, in The Knight of the Burning Pestle (I, ii) the Citizen's 
Wife tells us : ** Faith, husband, and Ralph says true ; for they 
say the King of Portugal cannot sit at his meat, but the giants 
and the ettins will come and snatch it from him.'' Nicors are 
more properly sea- monsters. I heard of, but did not see, the 
arrival of one upon the shore of the Isle of Portland, in the 
autumn of 1914. It was described as a fish of repellent appear- 
ance, which lay at high water-mark, beneath Portland Castle, 
gasping audibly. A native at once named it a *' nicor," but I 
have never seen the modern word defined. 
The *' Hrethmen " (Triumph- men) are here, most inappro- 
priately, the suflFering and discomfited Danes. The word is 
generally used of the Goths, as of Eormanric, the Hreth-King, 
in Widsith 7. This and the next lines suggest a speech in Virgil 
{Aeneid x, 557-580) : Istic nunc, metuende, iace. Non te optima 
mater 

Condet humi, patriove onerabit membra sepulcro : 
Alitibus linquere feris, aut gurgite mersum 
Unda feret, piscesque impasti vulnera lambent. 

Weland, in later English Wayland, is the master-smith. This 
armour had perhaps come to Hrethel from Nithhad, the Geat 
by whom Weland was imprisoned and forced to work. See Deor, 
*' Leaving " (laf) is a word frequently used of swords and armour, 
which must have figured prominently among the heirlooms of 
our ancestors. By a metaphor, the sword is spoken of as the 
hammer's, or the file's legacy ; for from these implements its 
first owner may be said to have inherited it. 
** Wyrd " (Destiny) is here personified, as in 477. Elsewhere 
the word is used of the destiny allotted to a man or men. 
This is the story alluded to by Beowulf at 420. Breca of the 
Brondings has been mentioned in Widsith. Beowulf, at 541, 
seems to imply that Breca could not swim faster than he, and 
that he could but did not choose to swim faster than Breca. At 
581 he breaks into what the sixteenth century Scots poets called 
a *' fly ting " and charges Unferth with the murder of his own 
brothers. The poet repeats this charge at 11 67, but nothing more 
is known of it. The quarrel is made up at 1455, when Unferth 
lends Beowulf his sword, Hrunting, to fight Grendel's mother. 
There is a quaint parallel to the story of Grendel's visit to the 
fifteen Geats in Heorot, in Treasure Island, when Long John 
Silver comes to the stockade with a flag of truce, and says : 
** That was a good lay of yours last night. I don't deny it was a 
good lay. Some of you pretty handy with the hand- 
spike end. And I'll not deny either but what some of my 

117 



people was shook, — maybe all was shook ; maybe I was shook 
myself ; maybe that s why Vm in here for terms. But you mark 
me, cap n, it won't do twice, by thunder ! We'll have to do 
sentry-go, and ease oj9F a point or so on the rum. Maybe you 
think we were all a sheet in the wind s eye. But I'll tell you I was 
sober ; I was on y dog-tired ; and if Td awoke a second sooner 
I'd a' caught you at the act, I would. He wasn't dead when I 
got round to him, not he." 

'* Well ? " says Captain Smollett, as cool as can be. All that 
Silver said was a riddle to him, but you would never have guessed 
it from his tone. As for me, I began to have an inkling. Ben Gunn's 
last words came back to my mind. I began to suppose that he 
had paid the buccaneers a visit while they all lay drunk together 
round the fire, and I reckoned up with glee that we had only 
fourteen enemies to deal with. — Treasure Island, chap. xx. 

741 This man was Hondscio (2076). 

748 He may be Beowulf or Grendel, probably the latter, as ** thoughts 
of envy (inwit-thonc) " implies treacherous intent. 

769 To these simple ancients a shortage of ale seemed the worst 
calamity that could befall them. The ** cruel wardens " are 
apparently Beowulf and Grendel. 

874 This, the Lay of Sigemund, is the first of the Episodes in Beo- 
ZDulf, In the later and more familiar story, the dragon was killed 
by Sigemund's son, Sigurd or Siegfried. Fitela (Sinfiotli) was 
the son of Sigemund, by his sister Signy, and so also his nephew. 
The Waelsing is better known as Volsung. 

900 Sigemund as a good and heroic King is a type of Beowulf. In 
Heremod, here and at 1709, we find the contrast of a bad King, 
who harms his people. He seems to have been a King of the 
Danes, of a dynasty older than the Shiel dings. 

1017 Compare Widsith, 45. 

1044 Ing was, according to Tacitus {Germanta, ii) one of the three 
sons of Mannus, son of the earth-born god Tuisto, from whom 
the tribe nearest the ocean take the name of Ingaevones. This is 
in Beowulf Ing-wine, or Ing's Friends. We find Ing mentioned 
among the East-Danes in the Runic Poem. 

1068 The Lay of Finn is the longest and most important of the Epi- 
sodes in Beowulf. It appears to be a condensation of a similar 
epic, of which the 48 lines called Finnsburgh (page 105-6) are a 
fragment. The story seems to be as follows : 

Finn, King of the Frisians, or Eotens, had carried off Hilde- 
burh, daughter of the Danish King Hoc, and sister of Hnaef 
and Hengest. After some years her brothers invade Finn's 
country, and in their attack Hnaef and a son of Finn by 
Hildeburh are killed, with many of the Frisians. Peace is 
signed, and the surviving Frisians undertake to build a hall 
for Hengest and his Danes, and to pay them tribute daily. 

118 



The bodies of the slain are solemnly burned. It is now mid- 
winter, and Hengest is obliged to stay among the Frisians ; 
he is consumed with grief for his brother, and plans an attack 
upon Finn. This the Frisians anticipate, and in the Finns- 
burgh fragment we find them attacking Hengest in his hall. 
According to the fragment, none of the Danes falls, but from 
Beowulf (i 142-4) we find that Hengest is killed. Two of his 
men, GuthlaiF and Oslaf (or Ordlaf), escape to Denmark, return 
with fresh forces, kill Finn and loot his hall, and carry back 
Hildeburh (in a triumph which she perhaps does not share) 
to her own people. 
1 1 13 *' Some " in the sense (which seems to have survived or revived 

in America) of ** many.'' 
1 1 43 Hunlafing is possibly the w^arrior w^ho kills Hengest ; but the 
MS. has ** him lafing,'' and the words may be separate. If so, 
Hun is the warrior (so Widsith, 33) and Lafing is a very probable 
name for a sword. The ** w^orld's ruling " is, of course, death. 
1 1 62 Here we have a passage such as is commoner in other poems, 
where there are three accented syllables in each half-line (com- 
pare 1705-7)- 
II 80 It is evident that Hrothulf, being older than Hrothgar's sons, is 

regarded as the heir to his throne. 
1 1 98 Another story, of which tantalisingly little is told. We have seen 
Hama in Widsith (124-130). There he rules as an exile, by dis- 
tributing ** wounden gold." Here he flees into exile — appar- 
ently into a cloister, choosing the '* Eternal Rule.'' Mr. Chambers 
{Widsith y p. 56) translates a passage from the Thidreks Saga, 
which bears on this. *' The monastery into which Heimir has 
been received without telling his name, is attacked by a giant, who 
challenges the monks. Heimir offers to meet him, and asks for 
the weapons which he has, long ago, surrendered to the abbot. 
The abbot answers : * Thou shalt not have thy sword ; it was 
broken asunder and a door hinge of made it here in the monast- 
ery. And the rest of thine armour was sold in the market- 
place.' Then spake Heimir : * Ye monks know much of books 
but little of chivalry ; had ye known how good these weapons 
were, ye had never parted with them.' And he sprang towards 
the abbot, and took his cowl in both hands and said : * Verily 
thou wast a fool, if no iron would suit thee to furnish thy 
church doors, but my good sword Naglhring, which has cut 
asunder many a helm like cloth, and made many a son of the 
giants headless ; and thou shalt pay for it.' And he shook the 
cowl, with the head inside, so hard that four of the abbot s teeth 
fell out ; three on to the floor, and the fourth down his throat. 
And when the monks heard mention of Naglhring, then they 
knew that it was Heimir Studasson, of whom they had oft heard 
tell. And they were sore afraid, and took the keys and went to 

119 



the great chest where all his weapons were stored. One took his 
sword Naglhring, the second his hauberk, the third his helm, 
the fourth his shield, and the fifth his spear. And all these 
weapons had been so well stored that they were no whit worse 
than when he parted with them. 

** And Heimir took Naglhring and saw how fairly its edges and 
its gold ornaments shone ; and it came into his mind what trust 
he had had in its edges each time that he should fight. And as 
he thought of many a happy day, and how he had ridden out to 
fight with his fellows, he was first red as blood, and then pale as 
a corpse. And he kepti silence for a time. x\fter that he asked 
where was his horse Rspa. And the abbot made answer : * Thy 
horse used to draw stones to the church ; he has been dead many 
a year.' " 

The Brosings' Collar we find in the Elder Edda, It was won from 
the dwarfs by Freya, and stolen from her by Lx>ki. The Brosings 
or Brisings probably dwelt on the rocky sununit of Alt-Breisach 
on the Rhine. 

1202 This other Collar Beowulf gives to Higelac, who wears it on his 
last expedition to Friesland, where he is slain and robbed by 
the Franks of Theodebert. 

1 214 ** Held " — not as conquerors (the word's usual meaning), but 
by covering it with their corpses, 

1247 So Tacitus tells us {Germania, xiii) : *' Nihil autem neque pub- 
licae neque privatae rei nisi armati agunt." 

1 25 1 There is a distinct break in the poem. These lines (1251-78) 
sum up the preceding and introduce the new adventure. This 
time the Danes have returned to sleep in their hall, and the 
Geats are lodged elsewhere. 

1257 This *' long time " was one or two days at most. 

1386 So in Virgil {Aeneid x, 467-9) : 

Stat sua cuique dies, breve et irreparabile tempus 
Omnibus est vitae : sed famam extendere factis, 
Hoc virtutis opus. 

1458 Swords have names here, as in Roland. So we have seen Heimir s 

sword Naglhring (Nail-ring) and shall see Beowiilf s last sword 

(2680) Naegling (Nail's offspring — its hilt was perhaps studded 

with nails, like the treasure-cup at 2023). 
1558 ** Eotenish," here and at 2616 and 2979, means *' gigantic," the 

work of etins ; there is no allusion to the Eotens of King Finn. 
1594 It is difficult to explain how, if water could not get into the hall, 

Grendel's blood rose through the water. 
1643 IMead-plains are fields in which the ingredients of mead are 

grown; so, too, the "mead-walk" in 924. 
1653 The alliteration in the second half-line is in ''to," as in the 

original (literally, *' which thou here to lookest "). 
1688 Runes were cut on the hilts of swords. This story, of the war 

120 



with the giants, and of the Deluge, is probably the oldest of all 
those mentioned in the poem. 

1709 Beowulf has already been contrasted with Heremod in lines 
901-915. 

1747 ** Worn wundor-bebodum wergan gastes.*' Woh means crooked, 
hence wicked. The cursed ghost is the Tempter. 

175 s The poet is constantly occupied by the thought of man s fleet- 
ing liJFe, his forced parting from his wealth, and the callous in- 
difference of his heirs. 

1836 The suggestion that Hrethric, the elder son of Hrothgar, should 
take service among the Geats may be inspired by the prevision 
ef a war with the Heathobeards, of which Beowulf speaks later 
(2024-2069) ; or by the feeling that Hrothulf would not protect 
Hrethric (whom, indeed, he appears from Saxo to have murdered) 
after the death of Hrothgar. 

1 861 " The gannet's bath,*' an effective synonym for the sea, is used 
also in the Chronicle (anno 975) in a short poem of lament for 
Edgar. 

1885 A King. The word '* a '' here is strongly emphasised, and bear* 
the alliteration. 

1930 Humble ** hnah '' — mean, base, illiberal. 

1 93 1 As Heremod is contrasted with Beowulf, so is Thrytho with 
Hygd. From the Vttce Duorum Off arum we learn of the Princess 
Drida, condemned to death, and set adrift in a boat ; carried to 
the shores of England, and taken as his bride by Offa. But this 
is the second, the historic Offa, an eighth century King of Mercia. 
The story seems to have strayed to him from his Anglian an- 
cestor, whom we found in Widsith 35. But the man she killed 
was her daughter's, not her own suitor, 

1950 " Counsel," i.e., a sentence of banishment. 

2000 Beowulf runs through the tale with which we are now familiar, 
but introduces a fresh episode, the story of Hrothgar 's daughter, 
Freaw^aru, and what is likely to happen if she goes with attend- 
ants to the court of Ingeld the Heathobeard. There is possibly 
a gap here, as Section XXVHI begins at 1962, and Section XXXJ 
at 2144. There is no Section- number between these in the MS., 
and the space left between 2038 and 2039 is singularly inappro- 
priate, coming in the middle of a sentence. I have used the word 
* femme ' in 2034 and 2059 — to preserve the alliteration of the 
original * faemne ' meaning a maiden, or bride. 

2140 He does not add that he cut off Grendels head also. 

2166 Here is implied a contrast between the Shieldings (though their 
crimes and treachery are never specified) and the blameless 
Geats. With this giving up of gifts we may compare Widsith 's 
surrender to his own King, Eadgils, of the ring given to him by 
Eormanric. 

2177 Here, in 23 lines which end the story of Beowulf's Adventures 

121 



among the Danes, we have a summary of his character. Like the 
elder Offa, he had been considered sluggish in his youth. 

2195 See my note on Widsith, 91. 

aaoo A gap of some sixty years is indicated by the asteriks which I 
have placed in the text here. As it happens, the fire of 1731 has 
made a gap also in the MS. Four half-lines are entirely lost, and 
in others the words I have italicised are illegible. After the mutil- 
ated lines begins what is certainly the most imaginative, and I 
think the most poetical passage, in Beowulf. With a rare sense of 
perspective, the poet describes the hoard of treasure, then pic- 
tures the long-dead chief, last survivor of an earlier race, who 
must have hidden it in the mound ; then his reason for hiding 
it, and so his elegy (2247-2266) on his dead companions. Then 
three and a half lines summing up the rest of his life, until 
** Death's tide felt at his heart." After making allowances every- 
where for verbosity, and for barrenness of grammatical con- 
struction, the reader of Beowulf comes upon this concise, simple 
and eloquent passage with a sense of joy, as one who comes upon 
a pool where he may dive and swim after walking through mile 
upon mile of the acrid dust and ensnaring stems of burned 
heather upon a moor . 

3270 ** He "in the first half-line is the dead chief ; in the second, the 
dragon. 

2288 '* Stone tha aefter stane, stearc-heort onfand Fcondcs fot-last " ; 
a strong and effective phrase. 

2354 This, as I have pointed out in the preface, brings us in touch 
with a historical invasion of Friesland, in the first quarter of the 
sixth century, in which Chocilaicus (Higelac) was killed. We 
have had the Hetware in TVidsith (33). They appear to be the 
same as the classical Hatuarii. 

2370 The boy is Heardred, son of Higelac and Hygd. As Hrothulf 
had succeeded his uncle, Hrothgar, so the Geatish throne is 
offered to Beownilf (the *' atheling " of 2374). 

2378 ** He " here, and ** him " in the next line, refer to Heardred. 
He seems to have given shelter to Eanmund and Eadgils, the 
sons of Ohthere, when they were banished by their uncle Onela. 
He (the " Ongentheow s bairn " of 2397) pursues them, and kills 
Heardred. He then retires, leaving Beowulf on the Geatish 
throne. Beowulf continues to support Eadgils (although his re- 
tainer Weohstan has slain Eanmund, as at 2612) and follows 
Onela to his own country, where he kills him, in a battle on the 
frozen surface of Lake Wener. 

2396 ** Cealdum cear-sithum " in cold care-marches. The two words 
outline a picture as clear as Balzac's long story of the Beresina. 

2430 There was tragedy in the Geatish as in the Danish dynasty, but 
it was by chance, not through malice, that Haethcyn killed his 
brother, Herebeald. Haethcyn, however, is killed by the Swedes, 

122 



Ongentheow and his sons, in one of their attacks on Hreosna 
Hill (Hreosnabeorh). 

2484 Haethcyn was killed, but his brother, Higelac, avenged him by 
the hand of Eofor. Later we find that Higelac rewards Eofor 
with the hand of his only daughter (2997). This battle is des- 
cribed again in lines 2946-2998. 

2490 ** Him '' and ** he '' refer to Higelac. 

2494 The ** Yifthas " are probably the Gepidae (see Widsith, 60), 
whose King, Fastida, sent a foolish challenge to Ostrogotha. 

2502 The ** Hugas," with the Franks and Frisians, opposed Higelac 
in his last battle, 

2561 ** The ring-twister " (hring-boga) describes the serpentine 
advance of the dragon. 

2577 This sword is called ** Naegling,'' or *' Nailing,'' at 2680. Here 
the word is ** incgelafe," whose meaning is uncertain. As good 
as any other rendering is to suppose that this is the Danish sword, 
presented by Hrothgar, the " Lord of Ing s Friends/' to Beo- 
wulf, and that it is in some way connected with Ing, the founder 
of the earlier Danish house. 

a6c2 Wiglaf is here a Scylfing (but in 2814 he is one of Beowulf's 
kindred) and a Waegmunding. Mr. Wyatt suggests that Ecgtheow 
and Weohstan were brothers, and sons of Waegmund, who was 
a brother of Ongentheow and son of Scylf , It is possible that he 
is called ** a lord of Scylfings," because he had inherited 
Scylfing heirlooms from his father, who had won them from 
Eanmund. 

2705 As writing was originally done with a knife, upon wood, the 
suggestion that Beowulf, in wounding the dragon, carved runes 
of death upon it, is obvious and eflFective. 

2720 There is something of the scene between Roland and Turpin 
here, and more of Arthur and Bedivere. 

2767 The nature of this sign or standard, as of that set up over Shield 
of the Sheaf (47), is uncertain. 

2890 So Tacitus {Gennania, vi) : " Scutum reliquisse praecipuum 
flagitium, nee aut sacris adesse aut concilium inire ignominioso 
fas ; multique superstites bellorum infamiam laqueo finierunt." 

2913 Here again we have a reference to the last fight of Higelac in 
Friesland. And, at 2922, a further account of the fight at Ravens- 
wood, in which we are told how Ongentheow delivers his wife 
(possibly the daughter of Halfdane, mentioned at 62) from the 
Geats who had carried her oflF ; and how Higelac (after Haethcyn 
has been killed) comes to the rescue of his Geats, and drives the 
Swedes back across the plain of peace. Wulf and Eofor, sons of 
Wonred, attack Ongentheow. Wulf falls wounded, but Eofor 
kills the old King, and is rewarded with the hand of Higelac's 
daughter. 



123 



3005 This line has been regarded as a repetition of 2052, and as pre- 
senting a difficulty, which I myself cannot see, unless in the 
suggested reading *' Scylfings/' The speaker is rapidly sum- 
marizing Beowulf's career backwards. This line refers to the 
fight with Grendel, the next line to the still earlier exploits, 
such as the swimming-match with Breca. 

3052 The greatest pains were taken to guard against the violation of 
treasure hoards. The grim story in Grettir the Strong suggests 
the kind of fear associated w^ith them. 

3 12 1 The last folio, which begins here, is much torn. The worst gaps 
are in lines 3 150-3 155, where it seems that a new character is 
introduced, ** sio geo-meowle," ** the wife of old.'' We have 
heard nothing hitherto of Beowulf's wife, but it is only natural 
to suppose that one existed. Possibly she was Hygd. 



FINNSBURGH 

1 The sole authority for the text of this fragment is the Thesaurus 
of Dr. George Hickes, Dean of Worcester, the MS. having long 
disappeared. It opens with ** . . . nas byrnath naefre." Sup- 
plying " hornas " from line 4, we get the end of a question or 
exclamation ** The gable-horns are never burning." There is 
still some obscurity, as the speaker appears to be inside the hall . 
See my note on Beowulf, 1068. 

2 The ** battle-young King " is probably Hengest ; his brother, 
Hnaef, having been killed earlier in the story. 

16 Orlaf and Guthlaf are probably the Oslaf and Guthlaf of Beo- 
fvulf, 1 148, who escape from the fight and return, later, to avenge 
the death of Hengest by slaying Finn. 

18 These difficult lines are, literally. *' Then yet Garulf stirred up 
Guthere that they so noble (free-born) a life on the first journey 
to the halls doors in harness bear not, now that it one hardy in 
enmity would take." But whose was the noble life ? Hengest 's 
or Sigeferth's or Garulf 's own ? The last was, apparently, son of 
Guthlaf. 

Z4 ** Secg " means ** a man," or (Beowulf, 684) '' a sword." We 
have seen a tribe of " Sycgs " twice in Widsith (31 and 62), 
where their ruler is called Saeferth. M oiler identifies them with 
the subsequent colonists of Essex. 

34 Hickes here reads ** Hwearflacra hraer," which is meaningless. 

40 They paid Hnaef for their mead by avenging his death. But it is 
possible that the place of the fragment is far earlier in the story, 
during the first Danish attack on Finn, in which Hnaef is killed. 

41 Yet we have seen that Garulf was killed, and we know that Hnaef 
was killed in the first and Hengest in the second fight. Without 
the help of Beowulf, 1068-1159, this fragment would not be in- 
telligible, and even with that help it presents several puzzles^ 

124 



It seems to belong to an epic of which the poet in BeoumlJ has 
summarized part, and to an epic more tersely and vigorously 
written than is the greater part of Beowulf. 

WALDERE 

I have given a sunmiary of the story in my Preface (p. xiv). 
3 The ** Mimming " was a sword made by Weland, and inherited 

by his son, Widia (Wittich), whom we have seen in Widsith, 

124 (Wudga). He was an associate of Theodoric, into whose 

possession this, or possibly Gunther s, sword seems (36) to have 

passed. 
6 Waldere had just left the host of Attila, of which he had been a 

captain. 
2'8 Gunther had been offered a large ransom by Waldere, but had 

refused to bargain, preferring to win the whole by fighting. 

The second fragment opens in a speech by Gunther (Guthhere) 
to Waldere before their fight. 

4c Widia was son of Weland, by Beadohild, daughter of Nithhad, 
and thus kin to both parties. 

46 We have seen Guthhere and his Burgunds in Widsith (65-6), 
where he gives the poet a ** gladsome jewel." 

47 It is evident that Waldere has now fought with Hagena. 

50 Either a sark or a helmet ; the epithet ** geapneb," *' wide- 
mouthed, "suggests the latter ; but is glossed ** amply studded," 
by Mr. Wyatt. Aelfhere is unknown, but Wiglaf was also of his 
kindred {Beowulf, 2604). 



DEOR 

I ** Weland him be wurman wraeces cunnade " is difficult ; Mr. 
Wyatt takes it to mean ** in Wermaland," a district of western 
Sweden. Nithhad, a King among the Geats, or South Swedes, 
imprisoned the smith Weland, and hamstrung him so that he 
could not escape while working for him. But Weland made 
himself wings, killed the sons of Nithhad and violated his daughter 
Beadohild, and then escaped. 

II She was pregnant with Widia. 

13 By transposing lines 14 and 13 we get symmetrical stanzas, and 

better sense than if we take 14 and 15 together. Hilda is then the 

same as Beadohild. 
15 "The Geat " is Nithhad, and his passion (according to the 

Volundarkvitha) is grief for the death of his sons. 
18 The MS. reads : " Theodric held for thirty winters," etc. But, 

as the poem deals with sufferings, and as Theodric is the classic 

"5 



instance of an exiled prince, I have ventured to assume an error 
in the text. Yet the poet may have been commiserating the 
Maerings as victims of Theodric s rule. 

21 See Widsith, 9. 

28 This, and the six following lines, are condemned as an inter- 
polation, which breaks the symmetry of the stanzas. 

36 Heoden ruled the Glommas, according to Wtdsith, 21. In the 
Edda he carries off the daughter of Hagena, who pursues the 
pair to the Island of Hoy, in Orkney. ** They fought all day, and 
in the evening the Kings w^ent to their ships. But Hild (Hagena s 
daughter) went by night to the corpses, and awoke the dead by 
magic. And the next day the Kings went to the battle-field and 
fought, and so did all those who fell the day before. In such wise 
the battle continued day after day ; so that all those who fell, 
and all the weapons and shields which lay on the battle-field, 
were turned into stone. And when it dawned, all the dead men 
stood up and fought, and all the weapons were sound ; and it is 
told in songs that the Hjathningar shall so abide till Dooms- 
day/' Heorrenda, in this story, is Hjarrandi, the father of Hethin 
(Heoden). In the High German poem Kudrun he is Horant, the 
sweet singer of the court of Hetel, who sails to Ireland to win 
Hild, daughter of the Irish King Hagen. His song ** shames into 
silence the birds singing in the bushes. Hild is charmed by it ; 
she cannot rest till Horant comes to sing to her in her chamber 
So Horant sings a song of Amile ; the like of which was 
never known by Christian man before or since, unless he heard 
it upon the wild waves. Then he throws oflf his disguise and 
woos for his lord. * Noble maid, my lord has in his court twelve 
who sing far beyond me ; and all so sweet as is their song, yet 
my lord sings best of all/ She consents to flee with the wooers/* 
It is, of course, possible that this is the Hild of line 14, and that 
15 refers to Heoden 's love for her ; but why should he be a 
Geat ? 

In closing these notes with two large quotations borrowed from 
Mr. Chambers, I must again express in words a debt to him 
which is otherwise insoluble. 

C. K. S. M. 

London, 

April, 1 92 1. 



126 



THE DANISH KINGS 

Scef (Sheaf) 

I 
Scyld Scefing (Shield) .4 — 52 

Beowulf Scylding .53 

I 

Healfdene (Halfttaae) ,57 



Heorogar Hrothgar = Wealhtheow, Halga ? the Queen 

61,467,2158 61 &c. a Helming. 6i of Onela 

612, Sec. \ 62. 

\ 

I \ 

Heoroweard Hrethric Hrothmund Freawaru Hrothulf 

2161 1189,1836 1189 2022 wife 1017,1181 

of Ingeld, 
son of Ffoda, 
a Heathobeard 



THE GEATISH KINGS 

Swerting 1203 

I 

Hrethel 454 Haereth 1929 



Herebeald Haethcyn the Hygelac= Hygd 1926 

2434 2434,2923 wife 43S»*c- I 

of I I 

Ecgtheow the Heardred 

I wife 2200 &c. 

I of Eofor 

Beowulf 2484 
343> etc. 

(Numbers refer to lines in Beowulf) 



127 



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